in the land of the dex
Oct. 11th, 2006 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacStill frantically (for I've just passed the second deadline), but as cautiously as possible to avoid typos and such, compiling that index. Almost, almost done. I skipped over the biggest single entry so that I could use the data in other entries to help guide the sub-entries for this one. But it's not a simple process because entries involving two indexable points are not always reciprocal. (Delete long explanation here.)
So I'm moving a lot of data around Excel databases and retyping it into Word - or, more usually, cut-and-pasting using Notepad for my draft files, because Notepad deletes the Excel formatting and Word doesn't: if you paste Excel cells into Word, the data comes in little boxes, and I don't want that.
The bane of all keyboard shortcuts, the mistyped chord, has been plaguing me. I keep issuing commands that I didn't intend, have never seen before, and have no idea how I got. One in particular in Excel is annoying. So I'm copying and pasting data between cells to avoid retyping it: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, right? Far too frequently, something in this process suddenly takes me - no matter that the file is only a couple hundred fields long - to a place thousands upon thousands of empty fields below. It's like passing by the Hidden Centuries in The End of Eternity. And then I have to scroll back. Again.
So I'm moving a lot of data around Excel databases and retyping it into Word - or, more usually, cut-and-pasting using Notepad for my draft files, because Notepad deletes the Excel formatting and Word doesn't: if you paste Excel cells into Word, the data comes in little boxes, and I don't want that.
The bane of all keyboard shortcuts, the mistyped chord, has been plaguing me. I keep issuing commands that I didn't intend, have never seen before, and have no idea how I got. One in particular in Excel is annoying. So I'm copying and pasting data between cells to avoid retyping it: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, right? Far too frequently, something in this process suddenly takes me - no matter that the file is only a couple hundred fields long - to a place thousands upon thousands of empty fields below. It's like passing by the Hidden Centuries in The End of Eternity. And then I have to scroll back. Again.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 08:03 pm (UTC)There are ways of getting around quickly in Excel. One of the most convenient ones is END - [arrow], which will bring you as far as you can go in that arrow's direction until you hit something (empty space if there's all filled cells in the way, filled cells if there's all empty space in the way). Sorry I can't explain it more clearly.
And while I don't know if it's documented anywhere, the old Lotus 1-2-3 command of using the F5 key to go directly to any cell whose address you specify, still works.
Apologies if you know these already.