Excel Tips: Sites and Add-ins
The Excel users in the crowd have been overlooked in this blog until now. I am compiling some tips to help you through your work day a little more efficiently, with some help from our friends over at TechRepublic.com, who seem to always have the best tips for business software users. To receive the following downloads, you first need to register, but don't worry. TechRepublic.com's site registration is free, and well worth it. So do that first. Then log in to the site. Now, the first of two very useful links.
The first is their list of "75 Essential Excel Tips": http://tinyurl.com/5tbztcThese tips have been compiled by their staff of talented Excel users. This 30-page document covers techniques for Excel 97-2003, featuring time-saving tricks that range from data entry and cell formatting to currency conversion and workbook sharing. But wait, there's more...
Some of my personal favorite Excel tips appear on this site: http://www.j-walk.com/ss/excel/usertips/ and I'm sure that everyone can find something useful to use in their Excel endeavors in these links. Some of the tips collected on the site are compiled from John Walkenbach' Spreadsheet column, which used to appear in PC World magazine.
One more great Excel Tip site is appropriately named ExcelTip.com: http://www.exceltip.com/ - Make sure to subscribe to their free newsletter and, as a bonus for subscribing, you will receive a link to download their 408-page eBook entitled "Learn Excel."
How abut a highly-useful Excel Add-in? Also from TechRepublic is Business Funtions (an Excel Add-in .exe file) and you can download it from here: http://tinyurl.com/62adzn
This Excel add-in has 500+ high-performance functions and is a comprehensive toolkit for business planning and analysis. It is designed to make financial models such as business plans and budgets faster to build and easier to maintain. It does this through integrated families of functions. One of the features is its day count accuracy used for projecting cash flows. 
If you liked TechRepublic's Excel add-in, how about another? Here is one that I am still using after two years. You will never be able to accept a standard installation of Excel after using the wonderful ASAP Utilities, the essential add-in for Excel users. Easily said, ASAP Utilities is a powerful add-in that fills the gaps in Excel and automates frequently-used tasks, and does it so well that you will wonder how you've done without it for this long. It adds an additional menu to your Excel toolbar which is customizable, but contains all of the commands that you used to have to search for (and many more that you didn't even know about). Now, everything you need will be in one convenient place.
A word about the license agreement for ASAP Utilities. First, there are two versions: an unregistered version and a registered (paid) version. You are licensed to use the software for evaluation purposes without charge for a maximum of 90 days for commercial purposes. You are also licensed to use the software without charge in a non-commercial organization or for home-use. However, each unregistered version will display an update notice in 6 months and expires 9 months after its release. This does not apply to the registered version, which costs $49, can be purchased on their site (http://www.asap-utilities.com/), and which will not expire. For a full-featured, unrestricted version, a registration fee is required. Upon payment, you will be sent an E-mail that will provide a License key to unlock it.
Now the Excel users can feel pretty good about themselves. I hope you enjoy the tips and add-ins.
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