Cell borders change cell location in List Manager

[Slipface]

Gang,
I'm using Excel v11.2 under Mac OS 10.4.3.

I have a relatively large spreadsheet in List Manager, using visuals
and the totals row. It is currently 888 rows (including the * and
totals row) by 24 columns wide. I remember reading something, possibly
in the Excel help, about list manger not working well with large
spreadsheets, but I don't recall it saying at what point "large"
begins, so perhaps this problem is related to using the List Manager.

Anyhow, I recently put some colored borders on some cells in the list,
and I noticed that when I sort or flter by various criteria, the
borders move to different cells. This is not good. I want the borders
to stay with the cells I've put them on.

OTOH, I have some other cells *filled* with a distinctive color, and
those cells are not affected like this. They stay filled correctly
regardless of how I may sort or filter the list.

So is this deal with the colored borders moving to different cells a
feature or a bug? If a bug, is there a fix? If a feature, are there
any other ways to easily mark cells that do not involve fills? As it
is, I already have two colors in the sheet, and it is getting a bit
dicey when I need to print it out in B&W because many of the colors
print about the same shade of grey. I'm also using bold & italic text
in other cells, so I'm running out of options for easily marking cells.

TIA!
_dennis

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Gang,
I'm using Excel v11.2 under Mac OS 10.4.3.

I have a relatively large spreadsheet in List Manager, using visuals
and the totals row. It is currently 888 rows (including the * and
totals row) by 24 columns wide. I remember reading something, possibly
in the Excel help, about list manger not working well with large
spreadsheets, but I don't recall it saying at what point "large"
begins, so perhaps this problem is related to using the List Manager.

Anyhow, I recently put some colored borders on some cells in the list,
and I noticed that when I sort or flter by various criteria, the
borders move to different cells. This is not good. I want the borders
to stay with the cells I've put them on.

OTOH, I have some other cells *filled* with a distinctive color, and
those cells are not affected like this. They stay filled correctly
regardless of how I may sort or filter the list.

So is this deal with the colored borders moving to different cells a
feature or a bug? If a bug, is there a fix? If a feature, are there
any other ways to easily mark cells that do not involve fills? As it
is, I already have two colors in the sheet, and it is getting a bit
dicey when I need to print it out in B&W because many of the colors
print about the same shade of grey. I'm also using bold & italic text
in other cells, so I'm running out of options for easily marking cells.

TIA!
_dennis

Unfortunately for your purposes, cell borders are associated with the cell,
not the cell contents. So, setting colored borders sets them for the cell.
When the cell is within a range that is to be sorted, only the contents of
the cell get rearranged, and the borders remain with the actual cell.

On the edit tab, make sure you have cut, copy and sort objects with cells
checked. You can try fill colors and/or patterns, or pictures in the cell or
adjacent cells.

This is the way Excel has always worked, so it is not a bug, but a "feature"
and will probably not get changed.

 

[Slipface]

This is the way Excel has always worked, so it is not a bug, but a "feature"
and will probably not get changed.

Gotcha, thanks. I've started getting more creative with colored, bold
text within the cells

It would be nice if there was a way to attach comments to cells, so
that the comment would pop up when hovering the mouse over it, much
like the column headers and other buttons do.
_d

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Gotcha, thanks. I've started getting more creative with colored, bold
text within the cells

It would be nice if there was a way to attach comments to cells, so
that the comment would pop up when hovering the mouse over it, much
like the column headers and other buttons do.
_d

There is! Just choose the menu item Insert-Comment.

 

[Slipface]

On 12/2/05 8:43 PM, in article 021220051743187794%[email protected],



There is! Just choose the menu item Insert-Comment.

Brilliant! Maybe I'm psychic? (or maybe I read about it long ago in
the Excel help and it just remained hidden in my subconscious

thanks!
_d

 

[Dave]

Far be it from me to argue with an MVP, but this is just the sort of
thing that conditional formatting is all about...

Cell borders can be set via conditional formatting, and the formatting
follows the cell when it gets sorted.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Far be it from me to argue with an MVP, but this is just the sort of
thing that conditional formatting is all about...

Cell borders can be set via conditional formatting, and the formatting
follows the cell when it gets sorted.

You are not arguing at all. Good point. That ought to work fine.