Showing results for Microsoft Excel - Scripting Blog [archived]

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet I periodically analyze using a script. How can I change the color of a cell to red if the date stored in that cell has passed?-- DM Hey, DM. We were going to start today’s column off with some clever and witty remark about red-letter dates, but we couldn’t actually think of one. Therefore,...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I delete data from a spreadsheet yet keep all the formatting?-- TB Hey, TB. From your email it sounds like you have a script that periodically replaces data in a spreadsheet with new, up-to-date values. The spreadsheet has been preformatted, and what you’d like to do is delete all the old values - thus making room for...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I open an Excel workbook and retrieve the names of all the worksheets?-- JG Hey, JG. It’s the first day back after a three-day weekend, and this morning all the Scripting Guys stumbled into the office and just stared blankly into space. (All in all, pretty much business as usual.) Eventually one of us spoke up and sai...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I tell if a specific Excel workbook is open and, if it isn’t, open it?-- RK Hey, RK. Every now and then we see a question and think, “We should answer this one; it’s so easy it won’t take more than a few minutes to finish the column and then we can all take a nice long lunch.” At some point you’d think we’d learn that...

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I insert a column into an Excel spreadsheet?-- HE Hey, HE. Let’s assume you have a spreadsheet that looks something like this: And, yes, it is a very nice little spreadsheet, except for one problem. As you can see, we goofed, and we forgot to insert Dataset 3; instead, we only have Datasets 1, 2, and 4. Even worse, D...