Just released: ASAP Utilities 4.6.1

MelleThe new version of ASAP Utilities, 4.6.1 has just been released!

A few nice additions have been added and a few bugs were fixed.
We also fixed the startup error that sometimes occurred due to a bug in Excel 2010.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed their feedback and tested the pre-release!

PS.
For the few of you that use or want to use the 64 bit edition of Excel 2010, ASAP Utilities doesn't support that yet.

Now available: ASAP Utilities 4.6.0

Bugs fixedASAP Utilities version 4.6.0 (June 7, 2010) has just been released!
This new version is released quickly after the previous version. That is because there were a few bugs in two of the most used tools ("Select cells based on content, formatting and more..." and "Export selection or active sheet as new file..."). My apologies for the inconvenience.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed their feedback and tested the pre-release!

ASAP Utilities 4.5.9 has been released!

Multilanguage setupI'm proud to tell you that the new version of ASAP Utilities, 4.5.9 has just been released!

We have added a few new tools, made several improvements and fixed a few bugs.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed their feedback!

Almost ready: ASAP Utilities 4.5.9

I'm proud to mention that the new version of ASAP Utilities is almost ready!

Based on the requests from many users, we have added several tools that will speed up your work in Excel.
Furthermore we have improved many tools and fixed all known bugs.

You can read what's new and download the pre-release from:
http://www.asap-utilities.com/faq-questions-answers-detail.php?m=224

One of the many improvements: Select cells by date
Select cells by date

Just released: ASAP Utilities 4.5.8

The new version of ASAP Utilities has just been releasedThe new version of ASAP Utilities, 4.5.8 has just been released!

We have added a few new tools, made some improvements and fixed a few bugs.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed their feedback!

How to: Set column width and row height in centimeters or inches?

In standard Excel you can't set the height or with of cells in centimeters or inches. Creating square cells is also difficult because Excel uses different units for the width and height of cells.

Setting the width and height in centimeters or inches can be helpful if you use the Excel for drawing purposes, such as creating a flowchart or when you design your garden or want to see if your furniture fits in your new apartment. The nature of a spreadsheet with it cells makes ideal graph paper.

I have created a macro to do this for myself years ago when I used to make a lot of flowcharts. Recently I was asked if it could be done in ASAP Utilities, so that was for me the reason to add it to the ASAP Utilities toolset.

With the new tool "Set the width and height of cells in centimeters or inches" you can now quickly set the row height and column width in centimeters or inches:

Set the rowheight and columnwidht in centimers or inches

Due to limitations of how precise you can set the width and height in Excel the actual width and height might differ a tenth of a centimeter/inch. Furthermore I have experienced myself that despite the cells are square, in my printout the height of the cells seem to be a bit smaller then the width.  This also happened if I drew a rectangle of 1 by 1 centimeter.
When I looked for more information about this when writing this post, I found the following articles which are interesting to read:
http://excel-tips.blogspot.com/2004/12/square-cells-in-excel.html
http://www.mrexcel.com/tip071.shtml

Download and use

You can read more information and download the pre-release of the new version from:
http://www.asap-utilities.com/faq-questions-answers-detail.php?m=220

You can start this new (experimental and only in English) tool via:
ASAP Utilities Options » New tools in development (experimental, English only)
and then click on the button "Set the width and height of cells in centimeters or inches":

ASAP Utilities Options » New tools in development (experimental, English only) » Set the width and height of cells in centimeters or inches

How to: Quickly remove duplicated records

At this moment ASAP Utilities already contains several tools to manage duplicates.
However a special tool for duplicate records was still missing... until now!

You could already identify or remove duplicated records with a workaround by merging the cell contents into a temporary added column and then use ASAP Utilities' "Conditional row and column select, hide or delete..." tool on this new column to remove the duplicated rows. But that involved a few extra steps and it isn't as fast as this new utility.

In the new version of ASAP Utilities you will be able to quickly remove all duplicated records from your sheet:
Remove duplicated records

Besides removing the duplicates from a single sheet, you can also choose the option "Remove the records from Dataset 1 that are found identical in Dataset 2". This can for example be used if you have two sheets with addresses and the persons on one of the sheets have already be contacted. You can then remove those from the first sheet to get a list of people that still need to be contacted.

You can also choose the following options:

  • Case sensitive.
    If you choose this option then the comparison is made case senstive. This means for example that "Bastien" does not equal "BASTIEN".
  • Ignore leading, trailing and excessive spaces (example: "bastien" equals "  bastien")
    If you choose this option than it doesn't matter if some cells have irregular spacing. This can be useful if the data isn't always entered properly. Especially trailing spaces sometime cause problems when it comes to comparing lists.
  • Hide the rows instead of removing them

Download and use

You can read more information and download the pre-release of the new version from:
http://www.asap-utilities.com/faq-questions-answers-detail.php?m=220

You can start this new (experimental and only in English) tool via:
ASAP Utilities Options » New tools in development (experimental, English only)
and then click on the button "Manage duplicated records":
Manage duplicated records

How to: Split data table into multiple worksheets (and save time)

Many people have asked me the past years if ASAP Utilities has an option to split a table into several sheets. Either per so many rows, or by value. Until recently that wasn't possible, but now it is!. In cooperation with several users we have created a new utility.

In the new version of ASAP Utilities you will be able to quickly export your data in parts to new worksheets.
You can for example export the information of each car brand to a new worksheet. Whenever the tool encounters a new brand in column A, a new sheet is created and the information of that brand will be copied there:
Export data in parts to multiple sheets

With this tool you can quickly split your data into multiple parts on different sheets.  You can do this either by value, for example to create a new sheet for each company, or you can specify the number of rows to create per sheet.

Each brand on a new tab Read more...

How to: Remove or replace line breaks and carrage returns in cells

There are few quick methods to remove the line breaks and carriage returns in cells.
By default you might not know an easy and quick way to do this but it is fairly simple, either with just Excel, or with the help of ASAP Utilities.

Let's say we have the following example.
In this case the author has used the shortcut Alt+Enter to put the last name on a new line.Initial dataset
But now we need it together on a single line, with a space between the first- and last name instead of a line break.
Instead of:
Bastien
Mensink

we need
Bastien Mensink, etc. etc.
Read more...

How to: Create a pipe delimited file

Last month I received the following question:
I need to know how to convert an excel file into a pipe delimited file using the ASAP software.

You can use the following tool to do this:
ASAP Utilities » Export » Export selection or active sheet as new file...

Then choose "CSV (comma separated value) or customer separated" and specify the pipe-character (|) as delimiter:Create a pipe-delimited text file

Of course you can use with any character to create a specific separated kind of text file.