Excel Formulas for Dummies (Techwalla Week 2)

Excel spreadsheet

The more complex a software program, the more hidden feature; or, should we say, undocumented features. Sure, even the most technologically unsavvy person knows how to type terms into a Google's search box, but do such people know about the "inurl:" and "site:" operators? No – and that's why there are hundreds of "hacks," "missing manual" and "for Dummies" books on the market for every complex software product. Yet some people still search for help on the internet – and the unlucky ones run across old rubbish ported from eHow.com to Techwalla.com, rubbish like Athena Hessong (sometimes known as Crystal Hessong) attempting to explain "How to Delete Data in Excel & Not Formulas."

Hessong's been here before, though usually in science and math; this is her first appearance as a "computer wallah." We quickly figured out she'd bitten off more than she could chew, though, just by looking at her first paragraph:

"Save time when working with spreadsheets in Excel by retaining your formulas after deleting data. Clearing the contents of a box (cell) in Excel does not mean that should have to reinsert the formula when you next need to add information. This trick speeds the rate at which you can repopulate a spreadsheet with new information while using the same formulas from the old data." We immediately doubted the mental capacity of both the OQ and Hessong, because – at least in our experience -- Excel formulas and the data they use aren't in the same "box (cell)" of a spreadsheet. So all you have to do to delete the data but retain the formula is highlight the data cell(s) and use the "clear contents" function.

Athena figured that out -- not that doing so requires any great deal of thought. What does require additional thought, however, is puzzling through why someone might ask this seemingly stupid question in the first place, and we figure it's because someone was faced with a large and complicated worksheet that had multiple formulas embedded in more-or-less random spots. So we googled it, and found that there is, indeed, a method that works (we tested it). Those instructions are readily available and can be found by googling the original question.

So why did Hessong choose to detail the simplistic answer but not do the necessary research to find a more elegant solution? Easy: she didn't understand the question. Or maybe it was that she knew doing it the easy way could earn her yet another Dumbass of the Day award -- and it did, indeed.

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