I would like to know how can we get the hidden data about the excel workbook programmatically e.g. which cell value is hidden, hidden row, hidden column, hidden sheet etc etc? how this data is stored in filesystem?
can this data or metadata be changed externally?
I may have misunderstood your question...hence my comment.
This article sheds some light on how to retrieve a list of hidden rows and columns using XML. (It also sheds some light on how Excel stores this information.)
Perhaps this will point you in the right direction.
Related
Fisrt i would like to state that i don't know much about vba other than what i pick up from the internet and forums like this one. I have a problem and i'm hoping some on this forum will come to my rescue.
I'm trying to create a simple equipment maintenance system in excel. I do not want to use the vba user form Because i do not have much knowledge of vba coding.I have two sheets, Sheet1 (called Form) and sheet2 (called Data). So i have craeted an on sheet form on the left of the sheet1 (Form) which i would like to stay visible at all times So to achieve this i picked up a method from the internet of creating a scrollable list (Displaying all data entries from sheet1 (Form), i have also picked up vba code to save and reflect form entries on Sheet1 (Form) on sheet 2, so far so good. Coming to the problem, i would like to make and delete entries directly on to the scrollable list which would also reflect on the data sheet. Another problem i would like to know if possible is how to make the maximum value of the scrollable can increase automatically as data rows increase.
Please HELP!
I've been trying to hide table columns on my Excel spreadsheet. While I can hide entire columns if my data was not in table form, this is something I cannot do because of the information that is underneath the table. For the purposes of this spreadsheet, that information needs to be below. So I can't really convert the table and I can't hide the information that is irrelevant.
Does anyone have a solution for this (this seems like a basic problem but I'm relatively new to Excel)?
You don't mention if that table above moves in number of rows or not but another option is to Data ---> GROUP the rows of the table and then collapse them. Select ALL rows relevant to the table and then click GROUP. To left of row numbers you'll have a line to click (with a + or -) to expand or collapse the data. This will visually look like only the data below is present and you can set print ranges to only look at the data below.
Hope that helps
You can only hide full columns. If hiding the data in the table is important, then the data below needs to be moved to a different sheet. Or, if it only needs to be hidden when printed, then you can change the font color to match the background color.
I have an Excel 2010 data table which is driven by a query from MSSQL. The underlying query changes depending upon what options the user selects in the Excel workbook. I'm okay with changing the query and pulling the data.
After the data has been selected multiple users will be able to edit and append data to the Excel table and these changes will post back to the SQL database table. Due to the database table structure some of these cells within a given row are mandatory before any data can be inserted into MSSQL and/or potentially updated.
So what I'm trying to achieve is checks on whether certain columns in a row are blank after a cell is edited (I can do this via Worksheet Change) and also before they move off that row so I can bring up a message if all mandatory columns haven't been entered. I can't see any events that fire before Selection Change. My only thoughts on a workaround is to have a global variable row marker that is updated on Selection Change, i.e. it will store the previous row number. I can't use Excel's standard data validation functionality looking at blank cells because although this is fine for a currently correctly populated row that is being edited, inserting new rows or appending directly to the bottom of the table will constantly error as all those mandatory columns will, of course, be blank. Currently I am using conditional formatting to at least highlight columns/cells that require input although this doesn't force users to actually do it. Data cannot be stored within MSSQL until these columns contain data so if they don't fill them in and refresh the table for whatever reason, whatever they have entered will be lost. Obviously this is bad, m'kay. I am concerned about both the Worksheet Change and Selection Change events constantly firing and how that will affect workbook performance.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Maybe I'm going about this all wrong so any ideas to make this more efficient would also be well received. The user base do not want to see UserForms or MS Access even though it would make this activity very easy. They are too used to the look and feel of Excel sheets.
your best way is to copy the table into 2d array or some other data structure in memory such as dictionary or collection. and than manage each change in memory. this one is very efficient but requires a lot of code. with excel the only problem you have is the key the rest is vlookup and true false questions. vlookup will find the original value and then you have current data + previous data + the logic... is the new data ok?
I have an excel file that I need to read into Power BI. Unfortunately I have no control over this file as its auto generated from another person.
Some of the cells in this file are just filled with colours and I want to be able to translate these colours when importing the data into Power BI.
For example if the colour is green in excel then show true in the corresponding power BI cell. At the moment it's just blank.
Does anyone know of a way to get cell "meta" data like colour from excel in Power BI?
Don't give up just yet...
I found an example that works in a roundabout way using Power Query in Excel. It will give you the meta data associated with each cell by its address (e.g. A1 is highlighted with color FFFFFF00). I relied on some Excel functions to associate the highlighted cell addresses with the cell values. Pulling the cell data with Power BI might take some additional work.
The technique is to use Power Query to open the Excel .xlsx file, which is basically a .zip file containing .xml documents. The color information for each cell can be extracted into a table. From there I was able to use INDIRECT() statements to read from the .xlsx workbook and extract the values from the colored cells. It worked quite well for me.
You can find a working example in the forum in the link below. The user defined DecompressFiles function in the sample uses the Binary.Decompress command to access the XML files within the .xlsx file.
https://www.excelguru.ca/forums/showthread.php?7047-Extract-Cell-Color-with-M&p=28875&viewfull=1#post28875
In my situation, I had a database export of about 7,000 rows and 50 columns into Excel. Working offline, users then went through Excel and made changes, highlighting every cell they had changed. Then they wanted me to update the database with only the highlighted cells. The background color used by each person varied but I didn't care what the color was, just that it was colored.
For each changed cell I was able to generate SQL statements to update the database and also insert into a transaction log table. The main database table was mostly flat but the few foreign key lookup values that were modified I had to update manually.
Column F uses the Indirect formula to pull data from the source workbook. Note that the source workbook must be open for the Indirect formula to read from it.
=INDIRECT("'[" & Import_Filename & "]" & Sheet_Name & "'!"&[#[SheetCellRef.2]])
Column G refines the data in Column F by putting quotes around strings or NULL if the cell is blank.
Column H grabs the column heading to know what field to update.
Column K grabs the Record ID value from the row specified in Column E.
I have had to run this process three different times for the users so my time invested paid off quickly. All I have to do is put their latest highlighted Excel file in the local folder and refresh the Power Query to generate new SQL statements.
Sorry I don't have a 'solution' posted right here. The process is still a little fragile and I'm trying to make a more robust example I can share. Stack Overflow doesn't seem to be set up for ongoing development of a solution. The point of this answer is to give hope to some of you who are desperate for a solution and won't take 'No' for an answer.
Sigh.
Color is not data. Unfortunately, many people color-code cells and then expect to be able to do things based on the color of the cell. But it's not that simple.
Although Excel now provides some ways to filter by cell color, it still cannot identify cell color with a worksheet formula.
Hence, you will need a VBA routine that evaluates all cells and records their colors in another table, which you will then need to push into your Power BI data model.
In the long run, it might be easier to talk to that other person who produces the color coded cells, and teach them a better way of doing things. Show them how to use conditional formatting based on cell values for color coding. The logic used for conditional formatting can also be applied to classify the data in Power BI.
From a data architecture point of view, the best solution is to address the problem at the source, instead of creating tools to handle bad data input.
Just sayin'.
I have got two adjacent tables. When I apply data filter on first table, it filters the whole row hiding rows from 2nd table as well. How do I restrict filter to only the first table range?
To answer your direct question How do I restrict filter to only the first table range? the answer is - you can't.
Reading the comments it seems what you need is to display the filtered table data next to a chart and another table. There is a little know tool in Excel that you can use to achieve this - the Camera Tool. With this you can create a dynamic image of a range and place it where you want. The image updates when a filter is applied to the source range, without affecting the rows on the Dashboard sheet.
Screenshots to demonstrate:
Setup with tables on seperate sheets, and camera images beside chart on dashboard sheet
With Filter applied to Table A
The Camera tool is not on the Ribbon (Excel 2010) or the standard toolbars (Excel 2003). You need to add it using Customisation. (Add to Qucik Access Toolbar in 2010 or Tools/Customisation Menu in 2003)
Unfortunately you won't be able to do that. When you filter, it filters the entire row (something to think about would be how the row number would display if that weren't the case). You will need to restructure your setup if you wish to prevent that (not sure of your particular use case, so sorry I can't give a more specific suggestion).
I had a similar issue, where i had a table I wanted to remain static - like a key, but wanted to filter the main table.
To get around this, I copied the static table, and pasted it as an image. This way, when you filter on the main table, the image remains where you have put it.
A simple workaround for this general issue that others may have mentioned (but I don't see here):
You can't filter just a range (e.g. a few columns in a spreadsheet), but you can sort just a range. And by sorting the range, then deleting some blocks of unwanted cells in the range, then sorting the range back to the original order, you can fake a filter.
A bit clunky, but easy for some jobs if you're careful.