Introduction:
This article covers the basics of using Form Controls in an Excel worksheet, and originated from one of my blog posts, which can be found here.

While I don't tend to use Form Controls a great deal, they are certainly one of the Excel features I'm glad are in the toolbox. The main reasons I'll use one of the Form Controls are:

• They give an obvious visual style to your worksheet
• They can be used to force users to choose one of your provided options (Pro-active data validation)

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Introduction:
One of the biggest parts lacking in user constructed solutions is documentation in the form of help files. As coders, we usually find it easier to build the application than explain to someone how to use it properly. After all, what we write in code is rarely read by others, and most novices think it's gibberish anyway. Actually explaining what you do in plain English (or whatever language you use) can be quite difficult. Ironically, it is this very fact that tells us why help files are important... write it down once, nicely, and you should never have to explain it again.

Office makes use of Compiled HMTL (chm) help files, which can be created by any number of applications. While writing these documents can be a difficult task of explaining yourself to the end user, the final trick is getting the compiled file to work with your application. This article was written to help ease the burden of the coding part, but unfortunately I'm going to leave the actual construction of the files to you, although I will give you some pointers to get started.

Programs to build help files:
First thing is first, you'll need to install a copy of Microsoft's HTML Workshop, if you don't have it installed already. This program is used by all Help authoring software, so it's not really an optional thing.

The next step is to find a suitable HTML Help compiler. Personally, I use West Wind Help Builder. It has an excellent FAQ included on how to start using the program, and allows for creation of some very rich help files. I'm a big fan of being able to easily write my documents including screen shots, hyperlinks, and context IDs, and West Wind Help makes this fairly easy. It even integrates nicely with another fantastic product, Tech Smith's SnagIt, for capturing nice screen shots. There are trial versions of both products available at the links provided.

Other programs do exist, but I cannot speak to their usefulness, as I have not worked with any of them extensively.

Built in Help methods:
Microsoft Excel does have some built in help constants and methods that you can use to deliver help in your applications. They work to a point, but they do have limitations. ...

I can't claim the original idea for this article. The concept actually comes from Professional Excel Development, but I developed the code, such as it is here, on my own. The reason for this was because I couldn't find it in the book when I went looking for it, so I knocked up my own version, and decided to post that here.

This is kind of a neat little routine, which adds a "DebugMode" property to the ThisWorkbook module. It also checks the MS Office username every time someone opens the file, and if it's me, it asks me if I want to use Debugging Mode. ...

Introduction
The purpose of this article is to provide corporate developers with a method to release, maintain and update an add-in in a network environment. This is based upon my strategies for doing this same. ...

There are three types of spreadsheets built in the world today:

1. The "quick 'n' dirty for your eyes only" type spreadsheet. It doesn't need to be pretty, and doesn't need a ton of time spent making it readable or understandable for the rest of the world.
2. The well thought out, re-usable, stable spreadsheet. This one is used many times, always works as intended, and can be relied on over and over again.
3. Version 1, trying to act as version 2. This is by far the most frustrating spreadsheet out there. Usually

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Formula Purpose:

• This function takes a series of letters and returns the average of them, i.e., the average of A, B, C is B.

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This page is dedicated to explaining how to use what I believe are the five most valuable formulas for working with text in Excel. They are useful on their own many times, but can become immensely powerful when nested (combined) with other formulas later as well. Mastering these five formulas will open up the door to many things that you may have never thought possible. All of these formulas can be used by putting actual text in the "text" area, but their true power is unlocked when using them on cell references as the data can then be dynamic.
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