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Dick Margulis noted: <<Excel has a function, Insert > Comment, that
places a small red triangle in the upper right corner of a cell,
linked to a textbox that you can type into. When the end user floats
a cursor over the triange, the comment pops up. The textbox is where
you place the help text. The comment box initializes with the name of
the logged in user in bold, as if you were going to enter a comment
on review. However, you can delete the name and create whatever help
text you wish.>>
It's a useful function, but obscure, particularly on a high-
resolution display (the comment markers are tiny and difficult to
see, at least in my opinion). If you use this approach, make sure to
alert users to the existence of the comments. You'd be tempted to
think that this is unnecessary, but I recall attending an STC
presentation (possibly by Scott DeLoach?) that provided clear
statistics on the surprisingly large number of users who weren't
aware of the Help menu or how to use it. I can't provide statistics,
but at a former employer, we greatly reduced the number of tech
support calls by including a "how to use the Help system" module in
our documentation and training.
Once the user understands that these comments exist, they provide
embedded help right next to the appropriate field and thus offer an
efficient way to provide help. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any
easy way to get external text (e.g., written in Word) into the
comments, other than through copy/paste. Possibly someone who really
knows Excel (definitely not me) can say how?
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Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
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