Yeah, this is a great thread.

What’s the best way to clean my unibody MacBook Pro for resale?

The outside, I mean. I know how to wipe the disk and all that.

Is anyone an Excel wizard?

I have a massive (1000+ lines) spreadsheet that I've been mapping onto a different one (same basic info, but some columns named differently and in a different order). I'm almost done except for three sections which are AWFUL.

The current spreadsheet has each possible value as its own column with a value of Y/N. (So, for example one is Age Range, the current column has Age Range K-3, Age Range 4-6, Age Range, 6-8, etc).

The new version has ONE column for Age Range, into which you are supposed to enter all values that apply. (In theory this is supposed to be a drop-down menu with multi-select but right now it's just a free text field).

There has to be a way to use the current dataset to generate a single set of values that I can paste into the new spreadsheet, because I am definitely not doing this manually for 1047 lines.

(And before anyone points out that this spreadsheet should really be a database, I KNOW, but unfortunately I am not in charge.)

Probably not the easiest way to do it, but I think for each column, I'd replace the yesses and nos with the appropriate number, and then sort by those columns so I could copy and paste by chunks into one column, and then I'd have one column all with numbers.

...but that's probably not a great way to do it.

I don't have an answer for you, I just wanted to say I really don't understand why databases are not more accepted. I see Excel forced to do things that should be in a DB so often and there's always someone at the top of the chain decreeing that's the way it has to be. I'm sure it's driven by the fact that there's a site license for Office, so just use the tool we have.

Right, next time I need to remove a screw I'm going to do it with a hammer, because I'm sure i can make it happen somehow and it's the tool that we have.

I love databases (I used Filemaker at my last job), but the reason I do things in Excel is that either Excel or Access is available to me, and I don't have the skills to make Access work for other people, or really for me. If I have a list of 100 names and addresses that I someone to be able to do mail merges with, it is just easier to use excel, which the other Admins understand than Access. Filemaker is not supported and activiely discouraged by our IT department. I have one Access database for registration, and they eliminated the Access database support position from IT, and it is so hard to use!

ETA- I would do what meara said (replacing the Y and N with a number, and then doing a search and replace for the number to put in the age range.

Let's say I do a search and replace on Age Range 0-3 to turn all the Y's into "0-3" and a search and replace on Age Range 4-6 to turn those Y's into "4-6" - is there an easy way to convert a row of text values into ONE cell with those values separated by commas?

You can use the CONCATENATE function to do that, Jess.

Eta: or &, that might be easier for a long string. =A1&","&A2&","&A3 etc

Awesome, thanks -t!