Useless Things you can do with Excel (2000)

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Im putting together for my web site a spreadsheet filled with excel tips that i know, one of the pages I want in my guide is about using excel for what it is meant to be used for rather than using excel as DTP or word processor. to make it a bit lighter on the reading im trying to find some examples of some really useless (or pointless) thing syou can do with excel,

For example i have a copy of a sliding puzzle on a spreadsheet, and a tacky firework displayon a spreadsheet, i woudl be greatful if anyone could point us in a direction of a few more

i seem to remeber once along time ago there was a women on one of the MVPS sites who came up with all this wonderful pictures in excel by shading certain cells and also something else i can remeber seeing was a life simulator in excel (based on if one cell is occupied by two other cells it will multiply, if it is alone it will die sort of thing) any examples please shout

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Check out:
http://www.mrexcel.com/pc10.php%5B/url%5D

It has life, magic 8-ball and several others

Steve

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wow ! some people rally do have to much spare time on their hands,

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Hi Chance,
I recall reading somewhere on Woody’s about someone who’d tried to turn Excel in to a fully fledged Word processor – that’s pretty useless (or maybe just pointless) when almost any Excel user has access to a decent word processor anyway.
Cheers

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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As it is coming up soon, don’t forget about Easter Eggs

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Useless things you can do with Excel:

How about calculate your taxes?

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Legare,

Since you mentioned it, take a look here. It must have taken a tremendous amount of work…

http://home.mchsi.com/~taxcalculator/

Regards,

Jim Cone
San Francisco, CA
jim.coneXXX@rcn.comXXX

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My father’s usage of a spreadsheet! All good intentions, but renders the whole idea of a spreadsheet almost useless. He tends to use the “infinite” expanse of a sheet as a huge pinup board, occassionally utilising slabs of grid here & there for tabular data, with no consistent columns, no defined areas etc. He then asks me to come up with some sort of magic to display a chart or something, derived for dozens of scraps of disparate data. You’d really have to see one firsthand to fully appreciate the level of desecration.

Alan

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Make an HTML Color Chart in a web page using Excel to generate the interations:

http://www.barasch.com/excel/colorthing.htm%5B/url%5D

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Another useless addition.

A Sudoku assistant – no it wont solve it for you, but it may make it easier.
It needs a bit of work – instructions etc added.

Thought you all may want to play now the lounge is alive and well again.
Any suggestions/improvemets are welcome.

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Here is a very silly one I did for a colleague an Excel Calculator.

Unfinished but with a battery life indicator at the top

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(Edited by HansV to make URL clickable – see Help 19)

Someone also in the excel forum asked for a clock. The response was a referal to the premier spread sheet writer John Walkenback as noted by Rory. Even the best learn by doing seemingly useless tasks. Reference is http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/clockchart.htm%5B/url%5D

Al

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A Shakespearean insult generator. (The lists of adjectives and nouns are easy to find on the internet.)
Press F9 to get a new insult. (Uses RANDBETWEEN, so the analysis toolpak needs to be enabled.)

Best,

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This reminds of the Star Trek “technobabble” generator i created based on a list in a Phil Farrand’s Nitpicker’s Guide

Steve

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That’s hilarious. Clearly the next step is some combination of the two.

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