Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Using INDEX and LOOKUP in Excel

We developers sometimes need the customer to collect some initial data, because he probably has something already. Usually Microsoft Excel, which is fine, because it contains many useful functions and features.

INDEX

One of such functions is INDEX (in Czech POZVYHLEDAT), which returns a value from defined block/column at defined row/index. You can check out the official documentation for this function for more info.

This way you can create simple “database” with lookups (enums) defined in a special sheet, that even may be hidden. Then you use Data Validation (in Ribbon on tab “Data”, section “Data Tools”) , that allows only certain values.

Then you can define lookup for the value as: =INDEX(A:A;2), where A:A is the whole column “A” and 2 is row number, which points to cell A2.

LOOKUP

But if you want key-value, function LOOKUP (CS: VYHLEDAT) is a better choice. There are also VLOOKUP and in Excel 365 is even better XLOOKUP.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Logos

I have to admit, I love creating logos, especially for my products, where I set some boundaries. It must have the same width and height, so from square to circle, I have a limit of only four colors and trying to find a “Q” shape in it, or even better, more letters from the name.

Because they're mostly simple and ready for vector graphics, I often use draw.io or Sketchup to design, them.

It's really fun for me, I even have quite a few logos I don't have use for yet, they just emerged from an idea I got.