In Excel 2011 for mac, a PivotTable is a special kind of table that summarizes data from a table, data range, or database external to the workbook. If you're PivotTable aficionado, you will be in seventh heaven with the new PivotTable capabilities in Office 2011 for Mac. This exercise was done completely in Mac Excel 2016, and other than not knowing a few of the shortcuts I use everyday, it was not very different from working in Windows Excel 2016. Dynamic Charts in Excel. It's pretty easy to set up data and create a chart in Excel. But once you've created a chart, it keeps plotting data from the same cells. If you want to create the Pivot Table in a specific location, under the option ‘Choose where you want the PivotTable report to be placed', specify When you create different views using a Pivot Table, Excel does not go back to the data source, rather it uses the Pivot Cache to quickly analyze the data. How to Create Pivot Tables in Excel.
Create/use custom or default sheet templates in Mac Excel
Note : If you use Excel for Windows read the information on this page.
If you want to insert a new specific worksheet to your workbook with a nice layout and maybe a few formulas on a regular basis then you have two options.
Make a copy each time of a clean worksheet with your layout
1: Select the sheet that you want to copy
2: Right click on the sheet tab and choose 'Move or Copy..'
3: Check the 'Create a copy' checkbox
4: Be sure that the 'To book' dropdown show the name of your file
5: Press OK
Or hold the Alt key down and drag the sheet tab to the right or left with your mouse.
When you release the mouse button you will see the copy of the sheet.
Use a Sheet template(xlt, xltx or xltm)
How do I create one:
1: Open a new workbook and delete all worksheets except the first one.
2: Change all the things you want in this worksheet
3: Then use File>Save As to save the file with the name you want as a Template (xlt, xltx or xltm). When you save as a template it automatically want to save in the default template folder.
How do I find the template folder in 2011 :
With code you can find the correct path in Excel 2011 with this code line
MsgBox Application.TemplatesPath & 'My Templates'
On my English Mac the folder location in Finder is : Macintosh HD:Users:RDB:Library:Application Support:Microsoft:Office:User Templates:My Templates
Note in Excel 2011 in will make the folder 'My Templates' in your TemplatePath automatic the first time you save a file as template. In every language version it is named 'My Templates'
Note : The library folder is a hidden folder, press the Alt key when you click on Go in the Finder menu to see/open this folder.
How do I find the template folder in 2016 :
With code you can find the correct path in Excel 2016 with this code line
MsgBox Application.TemplatesPath
'You see the string .localized appears twice in the msgbox (/User Content.localized/Templates.localized/). You don't see these in the Finder because by default the Finder suppresses extensions; while VBA shows the raw folder names, in English.'
On my English Mac the folder location in Finder is : /Users/rondebruin/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates
On my Dutch Mac in Finder User Content/Templates show up as Gebruikersinhoud/Sjablonen
Note : The library folder is a hidden folder, press the Alt key when you click on Go in the Finder menu to see/open this folder.
How do I insert a custom worksheet template in my workbook:
Note : As far as I know there is no option in the UserInterface like in Excel for Windows to insert custom sheet templates in Excel for the Mac. But I hope I am wrong. If you know a way please let me know so I can update this page. Note: when you change the default Excel worksheet you can use the normal options in the userinterface to insert worksheets, read the last section of this page for more information.
Add-in
For Mac Excel 2016 I create this add-in that add a menu item called 'Insert Sheet Template' to the bottom of the menu that you see when you Rightclick on a sheet tab on the bottom of your Excel screen.
Download Add-in for Mac Excel 2016 (File date 17-March-2018)
How to install the Add-in after you unzip it on your Mac
- Open Excel 2016
- Update Excel 2016 (See button in the Help menu)
- Use Tools>Excel Add-ins.. in the menu to open the Add-ins dialog
- Use the Browse button to select the add-in and choose Open
- Press OK
- Done
Note: If you copy the Add-in in the Add-ins folder it will be automatic in your Add-ins dialog list, for finding this folder see : Setup your Mac for Mac Office 2016
VBA code
But you can do it with VBA code if you want. Test the two basic examples below in Mac Excel 2011 and Mac Excel 2016:
Example to select the template you want to insert in your workbook :
With the macro example below you can select the template that you want to insert, you do not have to change anything in the macro before you try it.
The example below will insert the template MySheetTemplate.xltx after the last sheet in your workbook. You can use this macro for example if you want to insert a new worksheet based on this template every day. Be sure you have saved a sheet template with the name MySheetTemplate.xltx in the default template folder before you test the code.
If the sheet name in the template is 'ron' the first time the name of the sheet is 'ron' the second time the name is 'ron(2)' and the third time 'ron(3)' and ...
Change the Default Excel sheet template
In Excel 2011 and 2016 you can insert a new default worksheet like this:
- Right click on a sheet tab and click on 'Insert Sheet'
- Or you can click on the + sign on the right of the last sheet tab
- Or you can use 'Insert>Sheet>Blank Sheet' in the Excel menu bar.
If you want to change the settings of this worksheet you can create your own default sheet template:
- Open a new workbook and delete all worksheets except the first one.
- Change the things you want in this worksheet (Font/background color, font and font size and ?)
- Then use File>Save As to save the file as a Template (xltx or xltm)
- As template file name use Sheet(or local name) and copy the file in your Excel Startup folder.
Every worksheet you insert now is based on this worksheet template.
Important : You must remove the extension of the file name so only Sheet is left as template name. Note: If you not see file extensions use Finder>Preferences.Advanced to show them(first checkbox)
Where is the Excel Startup folder in 2011 ?
Open a new finder window and use Go>Go to Folder in the menu bar and paste in the path below to open the default Excel sheet template folder in Finder. Do not forget to copy the / in front, it automatically place the harddisk name in front of the other folders in the path.
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Startup/Excel
With code you can find the correct path with this code line
MsgBox Application.StartupPath
Where is the Excel Startup folder in 2016 ?
Note : In Excel 2016 the path is not the same as in 2011, use this code line to find the correct folder for 2016 to copy the Sheet template in : MsgBox Application.StartupPath Mac mechanic pro virus.
'You see the string .localized appears twice in the msgbox (/User Content.localized/Startup.localized/). You don't see these in the Finder because by default the Finder suppresses extensions; while VBA shows the raw folder names, in English.'
On my English Mac the folder location in Finder is : /Users/rondebruin/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Startup/Excel
On my Dutch Mac in Finder User Content/Startup show up as Gebruikersinhoud/Opstarten
Note : The library folder is a hidden folder, press the Alt key when you click on Go in the Finder menu to see/open this folder.
Workbook template
Tip: you can also make a custom default workbook if you want and add it in your Startup folder, you must name the template file Book(or local name) (remove the extension).
A reader emailed to ask whether you could make a dynamic chart using OFFSET-function-based Names in Excel 2016 for Mac. Good question, and I wondered if he'd encountered some unexpected problem, perhaps a bug, in Mac Excel. So I dusted off my MacBook Pro and tried it out.
Bottom line: There are several ways to make dynamic charts in Excel, and there seems to be no difference other than cosmetic in how they work between different versions of Excel, and between operating system. The protocols are the same for Mac Excel and Windows Excel, and perhaps it's time for a quick review. This exercise was done completely in Mac Excel 2016, and other than not knowing a few of the shortcuts I use everyday, it was not very different from working in Windows Excel 2016.
Dynamic Charts in Excel
It's pretty easy to set up data and create a chart in Excel. But once you've created a chart, it keeps plotting data from the same cells. If the data in the cells changes, so does the chart, but if the data extends to more cells (or shrinks to fewer cells), the chart doesn't seem to notice.
There are a couple ways to create charts that will grow with your data. The easiest way is to use Tables as the chart source data. A bit more complicated is to use Excel's Names to define the series data for your chart. Using Names can lead to more flexibility in defining the data in your charts. I'll describe how to make dynamic charts using Tables, using Names, and using Names in a more flexible way.
'You see the string .localized appears twice in the msgbox (/User Content.localized/Startup.localized/). You don't see these in the Finder because by default the Finder suppresses extensions; while VBA shows the raw folder names, in English.'
On my English Mac the folder location in Finder is : /Users/rondebruin/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Startup/Excel
On my Dutch Mac in Finder User Content/Startup show up as Gebruikersinhoud/Opstarten
Note : The library folder is a hidden folder, press the Alt key when you click on Go in the Finder menu to see/open this folder.
Workbook template
Tip: you can also make a custom default workbook if you want and add it in your Startup folder, you must name the template file Book(or local name) (remove the extension).
A reader emailed to ask whether you could make a dynamic chart using OFFSET-function-based Names in Excel 2016 for Mac. Good question, and I wondered if he'd encountered some unexpected problem, perhaps a bug, in Mac Excel. So I dusted off my MacBook Pro and tried it out.
Bottom line: There are several ways to make dynamic charts in Excel, and there seems to be no difference other than cosmetic in how they work between different versions of Excel, and between operating system. The protocols are the same for Mac Excel and Windows Excel, and perhaps it's time for a quick review. This exercise was done completely in Mac Excel 2016, and other than not knowing a few of the shortcuts I use everyday, it was not very different from working in Windows Excel 2016.
Dynamic Charts in Excel
It's pretty easy to set up data and create a chart in Excel. But once you've created a chart, it keeps plotting data from the same cells. If the data in the cells changes, so does the chart, but if the data extends to more cells (or shrinks to fewer cells), the chart doesn't seem to notice.
There are a couple ways to create charts that will grow with your data. The easiest way is to use Tables as the chart source data. A bit more complicated is to use Excel's Names to define the series data for your chart. Using Names can lead to more flexibility in defining the data in your charts. I'll describe how to make dynamic charts using Tables, using Names, and using Names in a more flexible way.
Dynamic Charts Using Tables
The easiest way to make a chart's contents reflect the size of a range of data is to put the data into a Table.
Tables made their appearance in Excel 2003, and were called 'Lists'. These lists were a more structured container for your data, with a database structure of fields (columns) and records (rows), field headers (column headers) and filtering tools. You could sort and filter your data range easily, and any formula that used a whole column of your List updated to automatically keep using that whole column of the list. Lists became the favored source data for charts and also for pivot tables.
In Excel 2007, Lists became known as 'Tables', and their capabilities have been expanded in every version since.
The screenshot below shows the same data and chart as above, but the data is now in a Table.
To get your data into a table, you select it (or select one cell and let Excel figure out how far it stretches), and on the Insert tab of the ribbon, click Table. Excel asks if your table has headers, then it applies a Table style (the yellow style is shown below), it adds AutoFilter dropdown arrows to the field headers, and it puts a small backwards 'L' bracket at the bottom right corner of the table.
You can change the size of the Table by clicking and dragging the bracket at the bottom left corner of the Table. If you type or paste data directly below the Table, the Table will automatically expand to include this new data. And a chart that uses all rows of the existing Table will expand accordingly.
If you type or paste data directly to the right of the Table, the Table will also automatically expand to include this new data. A chart that uses all of the existing Table will expand accordingly.
This little trick of adding a new series if the data expands accordingly is nice, but it requires that the chart already contain all of the Table's data.
Names (a/k/a 'Defined Names', 'Named Ranges', etc.)
A Name is what Excel calls a variable that resides in a worksheet or a workbook.
Names are often assigned to cells or ranges; for example, you might place a sales tax rate into a cell and name the cell SalesTax, and subsequently use the cell's name rather than its address in a formula. Because of this Names have been nicknamed 'Named Ranges'.
However, the definition of the name includes a formula. If my sales tax rate was stored in cell A1, then my Name SalesTax would have a definition of '=A1'. Because of this, John Walkenbach proposed that Names should be called 'Named Formulas', but he's smarter than the rest of us, so his suggestion didn't stick.
We can use Names in our charts, but we need a distinct name for each dynamic range that the chart will need. We'll need one Name for the X values if the series use the same X values range, and we'll need one Name for the Y values of each series. In our sample, we will need three Names. I'll call them XValues, Y1Values, and Y2Values, and I will define them as follows:
This OFFSET formula uses cell A1 of worksheet Names as a starting point, offsets the range down by one row and right by zero rows, then makes it as many rows tall as the number of alphanumeric cells in column A minus one (we don't want to include the 'Category' label), and one column wide.
So starting with cell A1, our range begins in cell B1, and is 6 rows tall and one column wide; our final range is A2:A7. It's easy to see that adding another value into cell A8 will expand this range to A2:A8. However, if we add a value in cell A57, it will also expand our range to A2:A8, so we need to make sure the rows below our data are kept blank.
The other two definitions are easier:
We've already figured out how large each range needs to be, since the X and Y values have the same number of cells, so both of these OFFSET formulas start with the first name XValues as an anchor, and offset no rows down but one or two columns to the right. If we don't specify sizes, then the new Names will define ranges the same size as the anchor.
Okay, that's how to build a formula definition for a Name. Let's actually create a Name.
On the Formulas tab of the ribbon, click the Define Name dropdown, and select Define Name… This pops up the Define Name dialog, shown below for the Mac. The Windows dialog is a bit more extensive, and Windows Excel has a much better Names Manager (this dialog happens to serve as the Mac's Names Manager). For a truly powerful Name Manager, you should try out the free Name Manager add-in at the website of my colleague, Excel MVP Jan Karel Pieterse.
If you've selected data before opening the dialog, Excel tries to guess how you want to name data based on labels in the top row and left column of the selection. But I've cleared all of this so we're starting fresh.
Here I've typed the name of the Name. Note that I've included the worksheet name and exclamation point, which means the Name will be 'in scope' (i.e., available) for the worksheet 'Names'. Otherwise it would be 'in scope' for the entire workbook.
Then enter the formula where it says 'Select the range of cells'. You can enter any formula that refers to cells, or a formula that calculates a value, or a constant value. I don't capitalize my function names when I enter them; that way, if there's an error, Excel won't capitalize a bad function name. A misspelled keyword is easier to recognize if it is not capitalized ('offfset' vs. 'OFFFSET').
Click the OK button to add the Name and exit the dialog, or click the Plus icon to add the name and keep the dialog open.
The name is listed in the box at the left; the worksheet name is listed as well to remind us that the scope of the Name is limited to that worksheet. The sheet name is removed from the name in the top right box.
You can make sure the name refers to the intended range if you click in the box with the formula defining the Name. With the cursor in the formula, the range A2:A7 is highlighted in the worksheet. Perfect.
Now enter the name and formula for the next Name, and don't forget to include the worksheet name.
Click the plus icon to add the name, and click in the formula to make sure that the Name references the desired range, B2:B7. Check.
Enter the name and formula for the last Name, remembering to include the worksheet name. Click the plus icon, and check that the formula refers to C2:C7.
Whew! Now we're finally ready to make our dynamic chart.
Dynamic Charts Using Names
Every chart series has a formula that defines the data in the chart. The blue series in the static chart below is
This means it uses cell B1 of the sheet Names for the series name ('Alpha'), A2:A7 for the X values, B2:B7 for the Y values, and it's the first series in the chart. The formula for the orange series is
We can use the Select Data dialog to modify these, but it's easiest to simply edit the formula directly.
Select the blue series of the dynamic chart, and observe the formula in the Formula Bar. It probably looks like the first SERIES formula above (I invariably start with a static chart of the data I want to plot dynamically). Edit the formula to read as follows, and press Enter.
If Excel doesn't like the new formula, make sure you've spelled the Names correctly.
Similarly edit the formula for the orange series to read
How To Create A Table In Excel Machining
At first the two charts look the same.
When we select the static chart, we can see the chart's source data highlighted in the worksheet.
We see the same data highlighted when the dynamic chart is selected. It's convenient that Excel is smart enough to highlight the chart data even if it is defined by dynamic Names. I'll select the dynamic charts in the rest of this tutorial to show the range included in these charts.
Now let's extend the data by a couple of rows. The static chart isn't clever enough to notice, but the dynamic chart keeps up nicely, illustrated by the highlighted data in the worksheet.
If we extend the data by a new column, the static chart doesn't change, and the dynamic chart doesn't add a series to represent the new data.
How To Create A Table In Excel Macro
I've added a third chart which shows the new data. I had to add an extra Name to the worksheet:
and then I had to add a third series to the chart with the following SERIES formula:
My new chart contains all the data, though I had to include it in the chart manually.
Before Excel 2003, the only way to get a dynamic chart was by using Names. It's a lot of work, and hardly seems worthwhile if using Tables is so easy. But if we know how to make a chart using Names, we can make a dynamic chart that's more complicated than just expanding to add a row.
Dynamic Charts Using Complicated Names
How To Create A Table In Excel Macros
How about a chart that doesn't show all the data, but only the last several points. This might be useful if you want to show the last six months of sales, or high temperature for the previous week.
We'll make a dynamic chart that plots the last five values. The setup is almost identical to the previous dynamic chart, but our definition of XValues will change.
This OFFSET formula uses cell A1 of worksheet Names as a starting point, offsets the range down by the number of alphanumeric cells in column A minus one, and right by zero rows. This means now we're starting at cell A7 instead of A2. Then we make the range -5 rows high, meaning we count upward, and one column wide. Our new X values range should be A3:A7. After entering the new name as before, check to make sure the correct range is highlighted.
Edit the SERIES formulas of your dynamic chart as we did above. We see that our static chart shows all six points of the data, but the dynamic chart shows only the last five points, categories B through F.
Let's add a couple rows of data. The static chart is, well, static, but our dynamic chart shows the new last five points, categories D through H.
Summary
Dynamic charts can easily be created in Excel using data ranges from Tables.
Excel For A Mac
With a bit more work dynamic charts can be created using skillfully defined Names. These charts can be more flexible than Table-based dynamic charts, depending on the formula skills of the Excel user. There are a few gotchas that I didn't mention: some Name definitions seem like they should work, for example, but Excel charts won't recognize certain functions. Also, some Name names may cause problems, especially those beginning with the letter 'c'; you can't enter them into the SERIES formula, but you can use them in the Select Data dialog.
