Here is how you can create and print your own personalized birthday party invitations in Word from a list of your friends compiled in Excel.

First, create your friends list in Microsoft Excel. It does not need to be anything fancy, just a straight list of names, but make sure you split the first and last names so you can address people by their first name if you want to add a personal note.

OK, the characters in Futurama aren’t really my friends, but you get the idea, heh.

Start creating a new file in Word and select the template you wish to use. Word will download any templates you select that you haven’t used before.

The template I selected allows you to print a folding invitation, so part of it is upside down. This feels a bit weird to edit but you can trust that it will come out ok on the printer!

Now go to the “Mailings” ribbon, press “Start Mail Merge”, and choose “Step by step mail merge wizard”

The mail merge side bar will open on step 1 of 6. Choose the type “Letters”, then click the link “Next” at the bottom

Now hit the radio button “Use the current document” and, again, click “Next”.

We want to “Use an existing list”, the list we created earlier in Excel, so browse for the file where you saved it on your machine and select it.

When you have browsed and found your Excel spreadsheet containing the names of your friends, choose the sheet from excel (sheet1), and click OK to load up the names into the Word “Mail Merge Recipients”.

If you look at the screen grab below, this is how Word sees our friends list. We could remove some of them if we don’t want to invite them to our party, by un-checking the box next to their name. Click OK when you are happy with the guest list.

To add a greeting line right before the invitation text, put your cursor above the text, and click “Greeting line” in the panel on the right of the screen.

You can customize the greeting line with various options and you get a preview before you commit yourself.

Before you complete your invites, you need to do some additional text modifications. There is some place holder text you do not want to publish (I don’t know who this “Stephanie” lady is, and it’s not 2004 anymore!). Click Next when you are done.

At this point you will see what the final product will look like. We can browse through the different invitations for each friend. If everything is all right, click “Next” again.

All that is left now is the final step, which is to print all the invitations!

Obviously we used an example that will be applicable to nearly everybody, but the same principle applies to all mail merges, from sales letters to other kinds of invitation.

Do you use Word mail merge? Please share your experiences in the comments …

This month Cogniview is celebrating the 4th Birthday of PDF2XL – our flagship PDF to Excel conversion product.

It’s not that we always had PDF2XL. You see, Cogniview started as an Enterprise software company that aimed to sell its Enterprise-Level software products to IT departments in large organizations.

We spent a lot of money on flamboyant marketing campaigns, well-dressed sales people and a variety of other time/money wasters.

After 4 years of struggles that resulted in a huge hole in our bank account, we woke up and realized we had to survive. So we turned to our customers who said: Make us a decent PDF to Excel converter – and that was how PDF2XL was born.

Since then, PDF2XL licenses were bought by more than 15,000 companies in a variety of industries all over the globe.

We are thankful to our customers, our employees, our partners and our blog readers who have contributed their time, energy and resources to help Cogniview achieve so many successes.

So, let the party begin!

And what’s a party without party gifts?

First a special Excel Productivity Guide that can help you save even more time when working with Excel.

Click here to Download the Excel Productivity Guide

PLUS…

We would be overjoyed if you would consider leaving PDF2XL a birthday greeting as a comment on this Blog post. The best 10 greetings will entitle their authors with a $15 Amazon Gift Card.

The best part is that the best greeting out of the top 10 will also win a Flip Mino camera!

So, we invite you to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment on this post.

And once again – thank you!

Yoav Ezer, CEO
Cogniview Systems 2002

You wouldn’t have thought something as cold, logical, and well, left-brain as a spreadsheet could help you with something as warm and fuzzy as your social connections, but it is true! Read on …

When you are networking there are many tiny bits of information that you pick up and need to remember. I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep a mental track of it all. My brain leaks information all the time, like a … water carrying container … with holes in … um …

We all know how nice it is when someone remembers our birthday, or remembers to wish us luck before an important business apointment or speech. The people who manage to achieve this get extra credit and a social leg up.

I am not talking about being a creepy stalker or turning all amateur private dectective. That would be just wrong and just a bit disturbing.

But people do drop tidbits into natural conversation and it is cool if you pick those up. Even more important if your social connections have moved from contact or colleague to the friend category. Then forgetting is potentially damaging. Especially when you meet in person and have to introduce your friend and their spouse to others and find yourself wringing your brain for names.

Excel can’t help with on the spot recall, only your gray cells can do that, but it can help you store, organize, and collate the information. And when you have all the information in one place you can study it more effectively.

Why use Excel?

• A diary is great for upcoming dates but not very good for searching past and future
• An electronic calendar is cool for searching, but not so good for related information
• Contact managers are ok for individual contact details but grouping becomes difficult
• Databases are cool but the more complex it becomes then the less likely you are going to use it
• You probably have Excel or equivalent – No additional software needed
• Add and change info in a familiar, no-nonsense interface
• Sort, filter, search, and get fancy with macros if you want to
• Spreadsheets are portable, you can export and share the doc, even on your PDA or iPhone

View Excel Spreadsheets on the iPhone?

Yup, did you know the iPhone could view Excel spreadsheets? Just email the spreadsheet to yourself and there it is, right in your inbox. Or use an iPhone application like “Files” which gives you WebDav file access and a file manager capability on the phone.

What kind of information should you collect?

Well, the answer is … anything useful! You never know

Just get down any information you can think of to begin with then evolve the spreadsheet as you go.

Check out this mind map (click to download or print)

Here is an idea of the process:

1. Each day take a look at your important dates to see if there is anything you need to make note of
2. Check out your spreadsheet before a meeting, or have it on hand when online
3. If a piece of information comes up in conversation when out and about, make a note then transfer to your spreadsheet
4. Use facts in your spreadsheet as conversation starters or to prevent awkward silences.
5. As always in conversations, ask more questions, you will seem more interesting if you are interested

Calculating Dates and Birthdays With Microsoft Excel

There are various formula functions that can help us juggle dates, especially anniversaries and birthdays.

• DateValue() = Turn text into a date
• Year/Day/Month() = Get the date part from a date that you need
• Now()/Today() = Get today’s date
• Text() = Convert a date into text
• DateDif() = Find the difference between two dates

So if you want to find the next date of a birthday, you can create the date from the day and month, by adding the current year as the year date part:

Or see how many days there are till a particular birthday, perhaps so you can sort the list with closest dates to the top:

We do this by using DATEDIF() and comparing it against TODAY() with days as our criteria.

You can see more cool Excel functions in our Microsoft Excel Cheat Sheet.

What do you think about this idea? Is this something you do already? Please share in the comments …

Here is a quick PDF containing a fast and easy run through of the basics of Microsoft Excel:

• Anatomy of a Spreadsheet
• Working With Spreadsheets
• Spreadsheet Formatting
• Calculating with Formulas
• Automatic Calculations
• Referencing Cells
• Formulas and Functions
• Example: Calculate a Discount
• Performing “What If?” calculations

Download it for free here:
Download excel-in-10mins PDF

Let me know if there is anything else Excel-related you would like me to cover or answer!

Spreadsheet design is not just about aesthetics, usability is an important aspect to take into account as well. If you are creating spreadsheets for other people to use then you absolutely need to make your spreadsheets easy to use. For a start, you don’t want filling out your sheets to be more of a chore than they need to be, but also to prevent data entry errors.

For this article I turned to an Excel expert, Debra Dalgleish, who is an independent computer consultant who specializes in Microsoft Office programming and development. As well as being awarded the Microsoft Office Excel MVP award each year since 2001, Debra is the author of three brilliant Excel books.

1. Many data entry errors can be avoided by reducing the amount of actual typing, or decision making on the part of the of the person doing the inputting. Debra recommends “Create data validation drop down lists so users can select a valid item instead of typing.”
2. “Use colour only as a guide for users. For example, type data in light blue cells and select from a list in light green cells.”
3. Consider also the readability of your spreadsheet when printed. “In the Page Setup dialog box, on the Sheet tab, add a check mark to ‘Black and white’. If a user prints the sheet, it will be easier to read, and will use less toner”.
4. Another printing tip that I snatched from Debra’s site is to selectively turn off cells when printing.
5. I asked Debra about her use of images in spreadsheets. Many people seem divided on if they add or detract from a layout. “I will sometimes add a client’s logo on a report that will be printed, or on their data entry page but I will rarely use any other pictures.”
6. You can shade alternating rows to make dense tables figures more readable using conditional formatting.
   

   1. Click the Select All button, above the Row 1 button, to select all the cells on the worksheet.
   2. Choose Format|Conditional Formatting
   3. From the first dropdown, choose Formula Is
   4. For the formula, enter    =MOD(ROW(),2)
   5. Click the Format button.
   6. On the Patterns tab, select a colour for shading
   7. Click OK, click OK

7. Debra recommends you use lines and borders sparingly, and to choose appropriate line colours. “In a data entry form I’d use lines as borders around data entry cells, in addition to colour in the cells. If the data entry form is long, lines would separate the sections. In a report I’d use lines to separate the totals from the report body. For separating data in a long list, white space is preferable, but if lines are necessary I’d use grey, instead of black.”
8. Here’s a nice trick Debra uses for adding a picture to a comment which keeps the sheet from looking cluttered
   

   1. Right-click the cell which contains the comment.
   2. Choose Show/Hide Comments, and clear any text from the comment.
   3. Click on the border of the comment, to select it.
   4. Choose Format|Comment
   5. On the Colors and Lines tab, click the drop-down arrow for Color.
   6. Click Fill Effects
   7. On the picture tab, click Select Picture
   8. Locate and select the picture
   9. To keep the picture in proportion, add a check mark to Lock Picture Aspect Ratio
   10. Click Insert, click OK, click OK

I certainly learned a lot from Debra and I hope you did too! Be sure to check out Debra’s blog for more Office tips.

If you have any tips of your own, please share in the comments …

Thankfully most of us have access to Microsoft Excel or an equivalent online service and spreadsheets have all you need to get the job done and shift the responsibility to an objective third party, even if it is one you program yourself.

I recently ran a prize draw where I needed to pull out a selection of names from a list of around 4,000. My original solution was a bit cumbersome, and I complained loud enough that readers came to my help.

With the assistance of Nicole Simon and Tony Rose I investigated better ways. Unfortunately their suggestion of using the RandBetween function threw errors on my Mac version of Office, so here is my new and tested approach.

The first column is an incremental number. You can easily add this in using the formula =ROW()-1 just type that in the first cell, copy, select how many cells you need, then paste. Excel will do the rest for you.

In the next column you add your names. Look over my selection and you will get an insight into my TV viewing habits

Now comes the part we did all this for, the random selection formula:

=VLOOKUP(INT(RAND() * MAX(A:A))+1,A1:B$21, 2, FALSE)

Vlookup will find the value of a cell based on an index. In our case the index is the number in the first column. We don’t just want any number though, we want Excel to select it randomly, so we use the RAND() function multiplied by the max (in my example 20). We want it to be a whole number so we wrap that in INT(), and it needs to start at 1 so we add 1 to the result.

In the next part of the VLookup we tell Excel where to find all the data, and where to find the value we want to return. We enter false for the final attribute because we need an exact match.

There you have it, just paste that baby in or recalculate as many times as you need and you will get random selections returned.

Only minor irritation, it doesn’t stop it returning duplicates, but it’s not a big deal for my purposes.

Got a better solution? Share in the comments

1. Cycle through open spreadsheets – If you hold CTRL while hitting Page Up and Page Down (in Macs hold Fn also) you can go from one sheet to the next, just like switching open windows with Alt-Tab
2. Make tabs stand out – You have probably worked out that you can name tabs, but did you know in certain versions you can color them too? Right-click and select Tab Color.
3. Insert the current date – Hold CTRL and hit + (; on Mac) to enter today’s date into the current cell. If you want the cell to always contain the current date, rather than the date right now, use =NOW() formula.
4. Instant charts – Just press F11 and you can create a chart from the currently selected data
5. Quick sum – Have you seen that angular E like button on your toolbar? That is the “sum” button, hit that to sum the currently selected data rather than typing the formula =SUM()

I just know you can do better. Got Excel tips? Add yours to the comments!