Re: OT: Excess output "picture" clutter from Excel

Offending Excel instruction shown:

> vNam = Cells(2, 7).Text + "V" 'board voltage > pPath = "G:\ANALOG\HVREG\Boards\TITANTWO\CodatronD\" > 'ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Select > 'Application.ActivePrinter = "Acrobat PDFWriter on FILE:" > ' Above statements have zero effect > > ' This next statement ADDS the non-removeable fluke > ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintOut Copies:=1, Preview:=False, _ > ActivePrinter:="Acrobat PDFWriter on FILE:", PrintToFile:=True, _ > Collate:=False, PrToFileName:=pPath + vNam > > Kill pPath + vNam 'only PDF left > Open pPath + "Log.TXT" For Append As #1 > Print #1, vNam, Cells(3, 7) > Close > > So i am a purist; if i am bold enough to SAVE the program, the next >time i wish to use it, that "outline" is seen. > There is no effect on my printout or how the program (seems) to operate. > It is IMPOSSIBLE to remove; it is NOT a "shape". > > Ideas?

Never use Excel!

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
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Reply to
John Larkin
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Maybe it's Excel 2000 or some archaic version.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

  1. Be real.
  2. Know of a useful replacement?
Reply to
Robert Baer

That "dotted frame" is an indicator of a selected print area. Easily removed MANUALLY. "PrintArea" seems to be a reserved word for a Function/Method, but there is ZERO info on use ANYWHERE, so (in a macro) one cannot do a File.PrintArea.Deselect or a File.PrintArea.Clear

Reply to
Robert Baer

Well, I never use it.

A text editor or Word for concepts. A program to do math.

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Don't use PowerPoint either.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

I used to use Excel to solve non-linear equations. Now I just pop the equation into PSpice.

I agree, PowerPoint is a cumbersome useless piece-a-crap. Much easier to create PDF presentations with the same or better capabilities, such as hierarchical schematics. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson
[snip].

For a presentation example, see "Sample_Custom_Chip_Design.pdf" on the S.E.D/Schematics Page of my website. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

You're the boss. The boss can get away with many things his employees can't, including efficiency (Excel is the only MS Office program that actually works).

Word is horrible (and has nothing to do with Excel). Excel does a lot more than "math", though it's quite useful for that, too.

I'd rather go for a root canal, than create presentations with PowerPoint but every once in a while I can't con the boss into doing it for me (I'm really bad at it - by design). Visio used to be useful but they've gone backwards with every release but we still use it for block diagrams.

Reply to
krw

Word is fine if you turn off all the junk, and don't use goofy styles or macros or automatic toc's. I get Word docs that are so pimped-out that they don't work.

My manufacturing people do their serial number and RMA logs and stuff in Excel, which seems to work. There's not much computation involved.

What annoys me about spreadsheets is that there is seldom any context or version control; it's just a heap of numbers. Even a text file can and should start with a basic statement of what this is, who did it, and the dates.

I use Visio for block diagrams too. The 2002 version, before Microsoft changed it much. Exported EMF files look good in Word docs and subsequent PDFs.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

One of the more complicated things I do in Excel are power tree calculations. I have a sheet that shows the power tree, with the current from each device, traced back to where it's sourced (and where that's sourced). That feeds individual sheets for each regulator, where the computations are made for each component. It goes a little deeper but that's the idea. It organizes the process and provides good material for design reviews.

It's no harder adding any of that to spreadsheets than it is to a text file.

We're stuck with Office/360. It's a real mess but no more so than anything else our IT people do.

Reply to
krw

Here's a power tree. I used a calculator.

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This is from a 76-page design notes document.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

Once i fiddled with PowerPoint and found it lame. Recently, i tried to use it to do a slide show of bunch of PDF files. Barf. Uninstalled it.

Reply to
Robert Baer

  • Where can one get that online automatic PDF viewer? It is becoming more common, and it is very neat.
Reply to
Robert Baer

It is user error pure and simple. Two short planks problem.

Whilst am am inclined to think that MickeySoft definition of Help is never very good since they include trivia and miss out key info this is not one of them. Type "PrintArea" into Excel developer help and you get:

He's a clueless f****it. Incapable of using the Excel help system.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

On that we are agreed. It drives me up the wall when people design posters using it. The only way to get something out that looks the same for web display is screen capture on a large enough screen. Despite it being XML wrapped it cannot save as a web friendly version that looks anything remotely like the original (same for Word on a bad day too).

Excel is actually useful in its own right for generating test data and some sorts of prototyping because the errors you make in a programming language are radically different to the ones you make with a big table of numbers. It is also quite handy for lazy fitting of functions.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

I have one big customer where everyone sends technical stuff in PowerPoints, with lots of blurry cell phone pictures. Ghastly.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

Word works fine to arrange a bunch of pics and titles, and then export to PDF.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

+1
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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

That's all a spreadsheet is.

That's about the complexity of one of mine, though I only use one primary switching regulator (different needs) and only small LDOs.

And if anything changes, you have to go through all the documentation. The spreadsheet *is* my documentation.

Reply to
krw

I keep my design notes doc current, and add notes, like first board measurements and such. We keep a separate "next" file of potential changes to the next PCB rev.

Don't you do that?

My Word doc is my design documentation. It has discussions of theory, pictures, equations, chronologies, links. That sort of thing gets ugly in a spreadsheet.

I have one algorithm that has a 3 page explanation, with paragraphs of theory, equations, diagrams, and tables. How would you do that in Excel?

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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Reply to
John Larkin

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