Make Writing Documentation 101% Easier With ScreenSteps

Screensteps In my consulting work and product creation I have to write a LOT of step by step instructions.

When creating these instructions you basically have two choices:

Use a video screen capture tool to make a walk-through, edit the video down, add voice over, convert to a usable video size and format, upload or send to client.
Create a document using screen grabs, annotate with explanatory text, compile into a PDF, send to client or upload

For the first case I use a Mac application called ScreenFlow, while PC users will likely have heard of Camtasia. These work fine for video, where video is warranted and when you have the time and quiet to do this.

The second though becomes a laborious task. It is necessary to do lots of fiddly little activities, and switch between multiple applications.

That is where ScreenSteps comes in. What it does is enable you to be far more productive with the step by step instruction process, either using the built in tools (all the way from capturing images, adding arrows and annotations, through to exporting as PDF), or by integrating with your favorite applications.

You might think that integrating with your existing tools goes counter to what I just said about it removing task switching, but in fact this app does something very cool and forehead-slappingly obvious that I can not believe I did not already have a utility that does it.

What it does is watches your clipboard and any time you add an image to the clipboard it pastes it into the step by step workflow that you are creating. Once you are done you can stop this “recording” and then go through adding instructions and anything else that needs to be clarified. At the end you can export as Word to finish the document editing part, rather than send directly to a finished PDF.

You can even create your own templates to further automate the process.

There is a free trial, after which you need to buy either

ScreenSteps Standard: $39.95 per user
ScreenSteps Pro: $79.95 per user

I think it is a bargain considering all the time I will save.

See below for an example that I just exported:

Example

Excel Productivity Video

This is the first video from Cogniview’s Excel productivity training.

In my opinion, the approach outlined in this video is the cornerstone of productivity (Whether you are an Excel user or not). I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Part I

Part II

Get More Organized with Evernote

How do you organize the tons of content that you are hit with each day? What do you do with the ideas, notes and to-do items that spring to mind throughout your work?

As a social media fan I have been getting a lot of use out of social bookmarking tools such as Delicious and even StumbleUpon. This has helped me store away web links, and organize them by tagging, but not the actual content.

For storing actual content that I find I have been using an excellent tool from Iterasi which allows you to “notarize” pages and save them online in folders and tagged for later access as if frozen in carbonite.

Evernote is a tool that aims to do both tasks, but in addition does a whole lot more, including text recognition in images - even hand written notes!

So you can record

Text notes
URLs
Images
Voice recording
Grabbed content
and more

I only heard about Evernote today from @masontech from DidIGetThingsDone, and I am glad I did.

The very best part, and the item that was most compelling to myself, was the fact that it syncs online, desktop and your iPhone. This means you have access to this content archive and all your notes wherever you are, even from your pocket.

So you can grab a piece of content from an ecommerce store or online review using your browser bookmarklet or plugin, and store it on the Evernote website. Later you can pick that note up while shopping on your iPhone. When you get home you can log into your desktop application and organize everything.

Very cool.

It does not end there. You Get Things Done fans can use Evernote to help you with your GTD productivity processes, as shown in this article. Very cool.

For now I am using a free account but will be upgrading to the premium account as it is only $5 a month which upgrades your capacity, speeds up image processing and removes the advertising.

Do you use Evernote or anything like it? Please let me know in the comments …

Productivity in 140 Characters

Since the beginning of this year I have had a growing desire to make it my mission to be truly productive.

That sentence in itself is a lesson in productivity. Note I did not say I had made it my mission, or actually made progress. I said “growing desire”. This means it is still largely a dream rather than something I have actually achieved

The truth is I have made some progress, along with my friend Cindy King who has been helping to keep me on track.

My productivity systems are coming together gradually.

Where I made a break through though was to focus on providing “value”, not “work”. Focusing on effort or work got me into trouble where I nearly burned out (more than once). By making sure I put value first, with reward later, I have been much happier and actually created better results for people.

A subtle difference, and maybe being pedantic, but makes a profound difference to the way I approach things

I’ve also discovered it helps to go with what comes natural to you rather than what other folks think you “should” be doing.

Due to some forced offline bouts, speaking engagements and recent trips, I have had a massive email productivity panic and this forced me to sort out my inbox for once and for all. First had to go all the non-essential email lists, either unsubscribed or filtered into folders.

In addition to “nuking the noise” I created two folders called “_action” and “_read” (the underscore puts those at the top of the folder list in my email client).

So now when I check my email I either

Delete
Mark as spam
Move to read - once read they are either deleted or archived in particular folders
Move to action - stuff that needs me to do more than read

Those actions are then part of my to-do list for the day, even if the action is that I need to acknowledge receipt.

I am still working on adding rules, for example I have a folder for lists that is for emails from list that are not noisy but still don’t require me to read as they come in.

Of course I have also bought the famous “GTD” book that everyone bangs on about, but I have yet to read it (too disorganized to find time to read the ultimate organization book!).

So now I am ready to learn from you guys, and here we get to the point of the subject line I asked on twitter if you have productivity tips, and I would like to open it up to you too if you have anything to add. Here are the responses so far:

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

MacSpeech Dictate Review

MacSpeech Dictate is a voice recognition and dictation system for Apple Macs. While the Windows world has Dragon Dictate, the Macosx world has so far been pretty under served in this kind of software, with all previous efforts not coming up to the standard of Dragon.

Then we hear that MacSpeech had licensed some of the wonderful Dragon technology and had built a native Mac dictation system from the ground up. This I had to try. My aching wrists and my ever-growing to-do list were begging me.

When I first heard about MacSpeech I thought it sounded like my dream of having Star Trek style computer control. As it turns out, while the system is brilliant, and far more advanced than really we should hope for, it is in fact not quite at the point where you can simply talk to the computer and have it understand your every word.

As you can see though in the video, you can talk pretty fast and have it still follow what you’re saying. The problem I have is having to think about everything consciously, including punctuation, and all that good stuff.

You can see and hear me thinking through this article and dictating it and you can see the MacSpeech reaction to everything that I am saying. Most of the awkwardness is coming from me rather than the system.

[Video may not play in email/feed so click through to view]

When you read the instructions it does tell you that you need to train the system and go through a fair bit of work to get the MacSpeech software to understand what you. In fact, in my experience it is training me that is going to be difficult, not training the software.

On receiving the package I went through the setup procedure and within an hour or less I was tweeting and e-mailing using the software. That’s pretty impressive.

My main difficulty of until now has been learning the keyboard controls and forcing myself to keep my hands off the keys. As it says in the manual you should either dictate or type, not try to do both. That is proving to be very difficult indeed!

Is it more efficient than typing? For me right now possibly not, but that is no fault of the software. It’s more about the amount of time I have dedicated to learning the system and a new approach to creating content. That said, I am certainly going to persist with it because I think it will help both my productivity and RSI.

In conclusion, I think the package is an amazing achievement and is only getting better as they release updates. Already I can see it being extremely beneficial in creating first drafts of content very quickly. I just need to buckle down and RTFM

How to Make 2009 More Productive by Doing Less

As I am writing to you today on 1st January I thought I would share with you how I plan to make 2009 a more productive year for myself than 2008, and how you can too.

Culling Time Wasters

The first place to look in becoming more productive is where you waste the most time.

My definition of “waste” in this context is activities that do not add much value but take considerable time. Spending time with my family is not a waste of time because we get value from it, while solitary “Tower Defense” web based game playing is likely adding zero value and just eating up precious time.

In the closing months of 2008 I took careful note of where my time was going. I worked out there were several areas I was spending time that could have been made more efficient. Keeping a time diary, even just scratched onto a scrap of paper or scribbled on a whiteboard can help you uncover where your time is going.

I found my biggest time leak was unscheduled interruptions.

For 2009 I will save time with:

Turning off the instant messager - IM conversations are fun and valuable, but not when at the expense of work
Scheduling telephone/skype calls - I am no longer going to be available on demand, the telephone will be on answer machine and skype will be off unless I have set aside to be available.
Smarter email - I just spent hours clearing my inbox down to zero from around 1,800 by setting up folders, rules, unsubscribing from unnecessary lists and ruthlessly deleting - Inspired by @BillT on Twitter
Focused Social Media time - Talking of Twitter, I found my rhythm with social media and now have worked out a social media schedule (which was stretched over the holidays, but you have to bend the rules sometimes!)

Spam and Unwanted Email

Email turns out to be a big part of my day. I don’t want to go the Tim Ferris route; I take pride in answering my own email and having good turnaround times. So rather than outsourcing, autoresponder or support ticket system, I am working on reducing my inbox clutter as much as possible.

A big load on my inbox is newsletters. For many services or products you have to supply an email address, and of course you do not know which will turn out to send you junk and which will be good, so you can’t use a temporary address in case it is the latter. I am taking the advice of my friend Damian who has a catch-all email forwarding set up on one of his domains and signs up to each with a unique email address in the form “list-name@domain.com”. If I get spam to this unique address I will know where it came from.

My email list from address is changing, as is my contact form. I am also moving my family and friends email to a different account so work is split from home. Each source of email will be isolated and easier to prioritize.

Another way I am handling email spam or junk messages is when a newsletter asks for my first name I am using a particular variation of my name, so any messages sent to “Hi _______” will be fitered off to a folder before I even see it, so I can go through them at my leisure, if at all.

Work to Your Rhythm

I have discovered I am most productive for certain tasks at certain points in the day. The problem is I have actually been working against these patterns.

My normal routine was to get up, make coffee, check my email, then work through anything the email demanded, followed by my task list for each day, with phone calls scheduled according to the other parties convenience and taking account the appropriate time zone math. Of course my body and mind were telling me that was a bad way to organize things.

Check your mood, motivation and output when performing certain tasks during the day.

When are you most creative?
When are you better at communicating?
When does your energy droop?
When are you easily distracted?
When can you find “the zone” most easily?

I found between certain hours I could output hundreds of words of writing, while others it was a struggle. At some times I could communicate easily and fluently, while others I wanted to hide from the phone. Logic escaped me at certain times and I just wanted to sleep, whereas at others I could solve problems that seemed impossible hours ago. Telephone calls, as mentioned earlier, saw me working at 2am because the other party was based in a far away time zone. Red Bull and coffee can only go so far.

Just by juggling my schedule I will get far more done.

Your body and mind will tell you when you should do certain things, listen to it!

Got Suggestions?

How can we make our 2009 more productive? Please share your tips, thoughts, experiences, ideas and comments …

Imagining the Ultimate Computer for Travellers

I have mentioned my interest in the Asus Eepc before. It seems it is almost the perfect machine for traveling, but not quite.

My current trip to the USA has made me think about the topic again. It seems all the needs are addressed in different devices, why isn’t there one machine that does it all?

What do I need for travel?

3G for decent internet away from wifi
wifi for high speed internet
at least 1024 pixels wide screen with legible text
Good application support including Firefox or as capable browser
Decent keyboard and mouse action
Enough storage for local document download and editing

Other requirements exist but could probably live without them.

Blackberries are all the rage, often have qwerty keyboards, but software support isn’t quite what you could get with a real desktop operating system.

The iPhone is almost there, but no 3g (yet) and I have doubts that you could do real work on the small screen, even with the funky interface. Apples lock down on apps is a problem too. It seems you still can’t edit documents locally.

Nokias little tablet seemed promising, with linux and a nice wide screen, but was restricted to Wifi and fiddly to operate.

Gadgetry

My old HTC based PDA was almost there but it also had a tiny screen, and crashed a lot due to running pocket pc operating system. The little keyboard was surprisingly good for typing with though once you got used to it, and it could run Skype for both voice chat and text.

Asus seems have the best solution. They have even announced a new model to their tiny notebook with 1024x wide screen. Paired with a bluetooth 3g phone (ok, cheating a little), is this the ultimate traveling machine? Seems to tick all the appropriate boxes.

7 Free Software Tools That Save You Time With SEO

Try as you might to avoid it, SEO is an important part of any online businesses marketing arsenal. Think of it this way, if you had a high street store you would want to place it where there was maximum passing trade, right? The same goes online, you want your website to be seen, and that means playing the Search Engine game.

How can we productively keep our SEO hand in, and monitor progress, without it taking over all our time? Enter our friends automation and software tools!

I have only recently started seriously getting back into the search area so let me know of your favorite tools in the comments, I am eager to hear what you recommend! I’m focusing here on online or cross-platform tools seeing as I am a mac user and most desktop tools seem PC based

On with the tools …

Google Webmaster Central - If you are looking at improving your search engine performance you might as well go to the source!

Get diagnostic information to see if you are causing spiders crawling problems, and see where you rank and for what.
Website Grader - Get your site analyzed and see where you are going wrong and what you are doing right.
WordTracker - Find the keywords people are using in your niche.
103Bees - Find the phrases people are finding you with. Great for those long tail searches.
SEO for Firefox - See detailed stats for any page, such as how many links it has pointed to it, all the way through to how old the site is. In fact, check out the rest of the tools at Aaron’s site while you are at it!
Sheer SEO tool - Funny name but very useful. See your ranking progress over time
Link Diagnosis - Find who is linking to your competitors.

Those were my 7 selected tools, which do you use and why? Please share in the comments …

PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is expensive, but that doesn’t mean you have to live a life without portable documents. What many people don’t realize is that PDF is a Federal Information Processing Standard, which means the specifications behind the format are widely published. Numerous developers take advantage of this fact and create programs that offer effective alternatives to Acrobat. Check out our list of these programs and take advantage of these tools that are full of some of the best PDF features and functions.

Downloadable/Online PDF Creators

These simply and emminently usable programs will allow you to quickly create your own PDFs.

CutePDF: Create a PDF file from almost any printable document. CutePDF has an open SDK and doesn’t bog down their software with popups or watermarks.
PrimoOnline: The online version of the popular PrimoPDF converter.
PDF reDirect: The freeware PDF reDirect offers loads of robust features, including PDF creation, previews, encryption, and more, that go a long way to replacing Adobe.
doPDF: Install doPDF as a virtual PDF printer driver, and you can create PDFs using your printer function.
CC (Free) PDF Converter: This printer driver can be used to create a PDF file from any printable Windows application.
PDFCreator: Use PDFCreator to create PDFs from any printable program, as well as encrypt and autosave files based on predefined terms.
Open Office: Open Office has a PDF export feature that allows you to define compression levels as well as handle thumbnails and hyperlinks.
Scribus: Use this desktop publishing program to create interactive PDF presentations and forms.
HylaFAX: HylaFAX is an open source fax server that can be configured to deliver in PDF.

Online and Desktop PDF Editors

PDF manipulation is easy and free with these tools.

PDFescape: This online PDF solution is a reader, editor, form filler, and form designer. All you need to use it is a JavaScript enabled web browser.
PDFedit: Use this editor to manipulate PDF documents, with an option to do your own scripting and plugins.
Multivalent browser: Although not a pure editor, this browser allows for minimal editing in the form of creating annotations. In addition, it includes several command-line PDF specific tools which allow for things like merging, compression, and extraction.

Viewers

If you need a simple way to open and read PDFs, look no further than these lightweight viewers.

Sumatra PDF: This Windows PDF viewer is light and minimalistic. It’s even designed for portable use, so you can run it from a USB drive.
FoxIt Reader: The Foxit PDF viewer is an all time favorite (especially of Digg users). And has a strong set of features (with a very competitive price )
PalmPDF: Use this PDF viewer for Palm OS devices.
Evince: Gnome users can take advantage of Evince, a document viewer that supports both PDF and PostScript documents.
Preview: Mac OS X comes with Preview, an application that displays images and PDFs.
ePDFView: This lightweight PDF viewer uses the GTK+ and Poppler libraries.
Okular: This document viewer for KDE 4 supports PDF, PostScript, and lots more.
Xpdf: Xpdf, available for nearly any Unix OS, is a PDF viewer that allows you to read encrypted PDFs, extract images, and more.

Compatability

Make the PDF format compatible with HTML, XML, non-proprietary formats, and more using these tools.

PythonPoint: Use this tool to create presentations that can be opened with any PDF viewer.
AxPoint: Create PDF slideshows from XML using AxPoint.
DocBook XSL Stylesheets: Create and store documents in a presentation-neutral form that can be published in HTML, PDF, and more.
Unipage: Unipage turns any page, online or local, into an HTML file that can function as a portable document. Although Unipage is currently only available on Windows, additional OS and browser support is coming soon.
EasyPDF SDK: The easyPDF development toolkit helps you create PDF functions with minimum effort and very little code.
KWord: KWord is a word processor for KOffice, and it offers a PDF import function.
PDFlib: The PDFlib development tool offers a way for developers to PDF-enable software and create PDFs on their own server.
Ghostscript: The Ghostscript software can interpret PostScript language and PDFs interchangeably and convert them to faster formats.
Mozilla Archive Format: This extension can save pages in MHTML format, which creates a portable document of the page.
Pstoedit: This program converts PostScript or PDF files to other output formats such as WOMF/EMF, PDF, DXF, CGM, and HTML.

Command Line Manipulation and Editing

These editors won’t be used on your desktop as you would use Acrobat or any other PDF application. Rather, you can use these offerings to build into your own apps so that you can automate the PDF creation and manipulation process.

PJ: Etymon’s PJ, the parent of PJX, is one of the earliest open source attempts to make PDF’s more accessible. PJ is a class library in Java that allows parsing, manipulation, and generation of PDF files.
PDFlib: The PDFlib development tool offers a way for developers to PDF-enable software and create PDFs on their own server.
mbtPdfAsm: The mbtPdfAsm application is an in line tool for assembling and merging PDF files, extracting information from them, and updating PDF metadata.
PDF::API2: PDF::API2 offers a “next generation” tool for creating and manipulating PDF files.
PDF Clown: The PDF Clown is an open source library which includes capabilities such as document splitting, merging, and more.
iText: iText is an ideal library for developers seeking to automate PDF creation and manipulation.
FreeDist: This freeware distiller can convert files into PDF as well as compose multiple files to one PDF in a specific order.
Pdftk: This toolkit offers command-line functionality for lots of features, like merging, form filling, and encryption.

PDF Creation Libraries, Scripts and Systems

If you’re a developer and you want to move beyond the capabilities of a desktop PDF creator, these libraries, scripts, and systems will help you incorporate PDF creation into your own applications.

CUPS: The Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is primarily a system for enabling a computer to act as a print server, but which has a robust feature that allows PDF exporting.
Lout: This document formatting system, the implementation of which is referred to as Basser Lout, can be outputted in PDF, plain text, and more.
Indexed PDF Creator: This tool automatically generates a keyword index for PDF documents which allows readers to quickly locate specific words and phrases in a document.
Cairo: Cairo, a vector drawing library, allows creation of PDF documents.
LyX: This document processor which is particularly popular amongst the scientific community offers PDF exporting.
Fly2PDF: You can create PDF documents directly using this ActiveX library.
PDF Creator Pilot: Use this library to create PDF files from popular programming languages like Visual Basic and ASP.
XeTex: XeTex is a typesetting program that offers PDF creation.
FPDF: Use FPDF to create PDF files with PHP. You don’t need PDFlib to use it.
Inkscape: Inkscape is an open source vector drawing program that offers support for PDF exports.
PdfTeX: This typesetting program can output PDF files and allows a number of features like links and tables of contents.
ReportLab: This library offers a PDF generation solution specifically suited for web publishers, developers, and creative designers who are looking for a high-speed automated PDF generation.
Tiny RML2PDF: You can create a PDF document from RML with this tool, giving it the appearance of a printed document.
HTML_ToPDF: This PHP class allows users to convert HTML to PDF files quickly and easily.

Other Tools

Get even more function from your PDFs using these tools.

Skim: For OS X, Skim is a PDF reader with features that allow you to take notes and highlight on any PDF file.
Notepad Generator: This tool makes it easy to create a PDF notepad, and it’s fully customizable.
PDFmap: PDFmap offers automated generation of interactive PDF maps.

With these tools, you should be able to go way beyond Adobe. Even better, you can do it for free and have the option to customize your experience using their open source status.

The Excel Magician: 70+ Excel Tips and Shortcuts to help you make Excel Magic

Are you working with Excel and want take your Excel skills to the next level? Or do you want to learn Excel and donâ€™t know where to start? Check out these 70+ tips and shortcuts that will help you make Excel Magic.

Online tutorials & videos

The following online tutorials are mostly free and will teach you quite a bit about Excel. In fact they are better than some of the expensive classroom training courses.

Online introduction to Excel: If you are just starting to use excel, this is the perfect resource for you. Here you will find dozens of audio courses that take a step by step approach to learning excel.
DataPig Technologies: The guys from Data Pig Technologies made a comprehensive collection of videos that explain almost every aspect of Excel. From basic Excel concepts to VBA programming. And most of the videos are free!
Online Charts Tutorial: Jon Peltier is an Excel-charting superstar. You can use his online tutorial to get you started on Excel charting and also as a reference.
Basic Formulas Guide: This excellent tutorial will help you master Excel formulas in no time.
Common uses for Formulas: This collection of samples will help you understand what can be achieved by using excel formulas.
An introduction to Pivot Tables: The Pivot Table is an amazing tool, but people often shy away from it because Pivot Tables seem complicated. The first page of this PDF contains a clear description of Pivot Tables and how they can be used.
Creating a Pivot table: A 7-minute video shows you how to create and work with Pivot Tables.
Pivot Tables in Excel 2007: Excel 2007 Pivot Tables are much easier to use. If you use excel 2007, check out this slightly promotional yet excellent introduction to Pivot Tables.
Practicing Pivot Tables: This step by step tutorial from Microsoft will help you sharpen your Pivot Table skills.
Microsoft Excel help / 2007: When all else fails, Microsoft Excel Help is a good source to try.

Books

In order to harness the full power of Excel, shell out a couple of book bucks. The following books are packed with information and real-world know-how.

General Excel Books

Excel Bible 2003 / 2007 version: The â€œExcel Bibleâ€ was written by the renowned Excel expert, John Walkenbach. It explains everything from basic formulas and functions to data validation, and Excel programming. If you have only $30 to spend on Excel training, buy this book.
Excel Charts: This book is a comprehensive, yet easy to understand, guide to Excel charting. Itâ€™s a useful resource for both beginner and experienced excel users.
Excel Formulas: Formulas are the lifeblood of spreadsheets and â€œExcel Formulasâ€ from John Walkenbach will teach you everything about them. This book covers all things formula, from custom worksheet functions to financials formulas and more.
Pivot Tables and data analysis / 2007 version: One of the most useful yet most feared features in Excel â€“ the Pivot Table, is tackled gracefully by Bill Jelen (aka Mr. Excel) and Michael Alexander. Well worth the read.
Excel Programming: By far, the best guide to Excel programming. The book also outlines a programming methodology for Excel. The only downside to this book is that it assumes a bit of programming knowledge.
Report programming with Excel: If you plan to build a reporting system based on excel, this is the book for you. It shows how to use Excel to build a reporting/data analysis environment and shows how to properly work with SQL databases.

Excel Tips and case studies

Excel case studies: While not for the beginner, this book contains valuable, real-world advice on how to make Fxcel do what you want it to do. Make sure you check out the â€œMaking things look goodâ€ chapter.
Excel Tips: A highly recommended Excel tip book from Mr. Spreadsheet himself.
Some more Excel Tips: A compendium of Excel tips. This is not the first book you should own, but I often find that I return to this book when Iâ€™m stuck.
This isnâ€™t Excel itâ€™s Magic: Bob Umlas is probably the foremost expert on formulas. The things this guy does with formulas will make your hair stand on end. If you are serious about Excel, than buy this book.

Specialized Excel books

Principals of finance with Excel: This highly recommended book will help you understand the applicability of Excel in financial environments. It is loaded with real world examples and can help both the financial expert and the techie.
Statistical Analysis with Excel: Using plain English and real-life examples, this book provides information that helps with statistical analysis. The book covers samples and normal distributions, probabilities and related distributions, trends and correlations, as well as statistical terms like median vs. mean, margin of error, standard deviation, permutations, and correlations.
Business Analysis with Excel: Running a business is complicated. Understanding issues like cost of goods, inventory, sales forecast, tax statements is crucial to success. Business analysis with Excel explains these issues and shows how to tackle them using Excel.
Sales Forecasting with Excel: This book shows you how to use Microsoft Excel, to predict trends and future sales based onâ€”numbers. Use data about the past to forecast the future. Excel provides all sorts of tools to help you do that, and this book shows you how to use them.
Excel for Chemists: While most of this book is a general introduction to Excel, it is filled with Chemistry oriented examples. The book also contains a complete chapter that shows how Excel can assist chemists in research.

Forums, News Groups and Mailing Lists

No matter how tough or silly your question is, the experts in the following sites/mailing lists will answer it. They will do it for free and usually within a couple of hours. Donâ€™t be shy. Join these communities and ask.

Note: The online Excel community is one of the nicest communities that I have ever had the pleasure of joining.

Mailing Lists: Wow. This is the jackpot. The Excel-G mailing list is monitored by the best Excel experts in the world. They answer every question. If you post an interesting enough problem these Excel gurus will compete among themselves to answer first and give the most elegant solution.
Mr. Excel Message Boards: A very friendly forum whose members will usually provide you with an answer within 3-5 hours. A bunch of Microsoft MVPs (including the Mr. Excel gang) monitor the forums. And, of course, it has a pure html interface which makes it easier to use.
Excel News Groups: If you prefer USENET groups to mailing lists or Message boards, than youâ€™ll love the Microsoft Excel groups. Most questions asked will be answered within 12 hours.
ExcelForum.com: ExcelForum.com provides a web interface to the Excel News groups. If you do not want to be bothered with the USENET interface, this site will is a useful alternative.

Excel Experts

Some Excel projects are too big/difficult to tackle alone. Here is a (short) list of some of the best hired guns in the Excel Field (If you know other top-notch Excel experts, drop a link to their site in the comments).

Jon Peltier: If you have a charting project/problem, I would recommend working with Jon. Jon brings to the table over 20 years of Excel experience A PhD from MIT and is a Microsoft Excel MVP.
Chip Pearson: Mr. Pearson is a renowned Excel expert and while his fees are not low, he is one of the best. If you need an urgent solution or have a critical project, I would consider asking Chip for help.
Mr. Excel Consulting Services: The Mr. Excel team is probably the largest Excel consultancy in the world. Their ranks include numerous excel MVPs and they have an amazing amount of Excel Knowledge.
JMT Consulting: A consulting service from two respected Excel MVPs: Masaru Kaji and Andrew Engwirda.

Excel Blogs and Tip Sites

Tips sites and Excel blogs will usually send you a daily Excel tip. Many Excel professionals register to these sites and read the daily tips to keep their Excel skills sharp. They also serve as repositories for thousands of Excel case studies.

Daily Dose of Excel: A blog managed by Dick Kusleika and authored by many Excel Experts and MVPs. â€œDaily Doseâ€ is updated several times a week and profiles tips, tricks and news from the excel Industry. Highly recommended!
ExcelTip.com: Over the years ExcelTip amassed hundreds of tips and solutions to real world problems. You can either use the categories or the search function to find the information you want. You can also register to a tips newsletter. The site is managed by Joseph Rubin.
Official Microsoft 2007 Blog: The Official Excel Blog. Written by the Excel product managers/programmers. It contains a lot of information and how-to articles about Excel. The level of articles on this blog varies from â€œuseful to everyoneâ€ to â€œonly for hardcore excel services programmers.â€
Vital News Excel Tips: Very similar to ExcelTip, this site contains hundreds of tips sorted into categories and offers a weekly newsletter.
Chip Pearson Newsletter: A new service from Chip Pearson. Each issue of this newsletter contains a thorough examination of a technique or of an Excel function. For those of you that wish to gain deep knowledge of Excel, this is an excellent resource.
Excel User: Excel User contains a â€œVisitor Questionâ€ section and many high quality articles. This site was created and maintained by Charles Kyd.
Andrewâ€™s Excel Tips: Andrew Engwirda writes one of the best Excel blogs. What separates Andrew from the flock is his vast amount of Excel and programming experience.
Codswallop: Although we are not a strictly an Excel-centered blog, we plan to bring a lot of Excel goodies in near future. Donâ€™t hesitate â€“ subscribe now!
Smurf On Spreadsheets: Simon Murphy is an Excel programming master. If you are into Excel Programming, this blog is perfect for you.
The Ken Puls Blog: Kenâ€™s blog is neither Excel centered nor frequently updated. However, when Ken does blog about Excel, itâ€™s pure gold. Definitely worth checking out.
XL Dennis: Dennis Wallentin writes about developing Excel centered solutions with the .Net framework.

Excel Templates

Templates can be a huge time saver and odds are that the spreadsheet you are trying to build already exists. Weâ€™ve divided Microsoftâ€™s huge template repository into useful categories so youâ€™ll be able to find the right template for you.

Business Related Templates

Budget Templates: Whether you are managing your personal budget, your Wedding budget or your gardening budget, youâ€™ll find a template for it here.
Balance Sheets: You can find almost any kind of balance sheet here.
Expense Reports: Unexpected expenses can have a nasty effect on your bottom line. Use these templates to record and control expenses (including traveling expenses).
Business Forms: Here you can find all types of different forms, from a traveling advance request form to a car mileage log.
Inventory Templates: Manage and track you inventory with these templates.
Invoices, Work Orders, Packing Slips: This is a real time saver. Whether you work in retail or services, you will find the right invoice/work order template here.
Purchase Orders: Not only will these templates help you get the exact the items you need on time and delivered to the right place, they also come in a variety of colors.
Receipts: A variety of receipt templates.
Time Sheets: Use these templates to track employee work time. You can choose a template that will sum the employee and overall working hours on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis.
All kinds of Reports: Different financial and management reports.

Other Templates

All Kinds of Lists: Phone List, Grocery List, Reading List, Gift List and much more.
Planning Templates: Business and personal planning templates.
Schedules: Schedule templates for your employee shifts, business and personal events.

AdditionalTemplate Sites

Vertex42 Excel Templates: Dozens of Excel templates. Some even come with a user manual.
OZGrid Excel Templates Page: Another big and famous collection of templates.

Excel Tools

Excel is the ultimate killer app. But there are cases where even Excel needs a little help. Here are some Excel Add-ins that can double your effectivness.

Asap Utilities: Probably the best known Excel productivity add-in. Asap utilities contains advance selection options, advanced browsing capabilities, better formula handling and much more.
Send Mail: This cool little freebie from Ron de Bruin that allows you to send an email with the contents of a workbook, a single sheet or even a selection area.
Excel Sentry: Use the Excel Sentry to prevent your business data from falling into the competitionâ€™s hands. The Excel sentry allows you to encrypt your spreadsheet in such a way that only you or your employees/coworkers can use it.
XL Statistics: A free statistics package that expands the existing Excel functionality.
Palo: A free (open source) OLAP server for excel. On-line Analytical Processing servers usually cost hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions of dollars. Jedox (the company that made Palo) is giving it away. Definitely worth checking out.
PDF to Excel: One of the most stubborn sources of data for Excel is PDF files. Whether they are scanned or not, PDF2XL will extract the data for you.
FlorenceSoft: This cool little app allows you to easily find the differences between two different sheets.
Excel Password Remover: Do you have a terribly important sheet you encrypted and then forgot the password? The Excel Password remover is your locksmith.
Tree Plan: A set of data analysis tools from Mike Middleton.
DPlot: Create 2D and 3D graphs and plots with DPlot. Especially suited for Engineers and scientist that need expanded charting and plotting functionality. DPlot contains unique chart types such as, the Polar Chart, The triangle plot and more.
DigDB: Another well known Microsoft Excel productivity add-in.

Additional Excel Resources

Excel User Conference: The Excel user Conference, run by Daemon Longworth (MVP), is by far the best venue to advance you Excel skills. You will learn high-end Excel tips and tricks from the best Excel experts (all the instructors are Microsoft MVPs). Plus, everyone is extremely friendly and youâ€™ll get a bunch of laughs and even a couple of beers.
Charts by Jorge Camoes: A site dedicated to Excel charts and charts add-ins. Also runs a chart centered blog.
Excel funny videos: Who said Excel wasnâ€™t fun?
Excel games: And to top the list. I present Excel â€“ the gaming platform.

Now itâ€™s time to Excel.