Sparkline

So today at work I came across a really cool feature in Microsoft Excel 2013. Enter the Sparkline.

Probably more of a gimmick but they look cool. They are a little chart that is just inside a cell. It can be a line,column or win/loss. They are easy to create and could be used if you don't the all of the features and hassle of a full chart.

Here's how to create a sparkline in excel:
Start by putting you data into one column. There aren't any labels so they don't really matter for this.

Then in the Insert tab on the ribbon find the Sparkline section and choose the style you want. This time we will create a win/loss style.

This will open the Sparkline dialog.

Select the data range. Make sure you don't select any labels as this will give an error.

When the Sparkline is created it will be small, the size of your cell so you will probably want to make the cell bigger.

And there you have it.

Probably just a gimmick but might be useful eventually.

Cheers,
Rex

Bypass ".docx" Password Protection

If you're just here for the how to, skip down to the pictures after the break.

Now I know that bypassing passwords is something that not everyone likes to do. However sometimes you can forget the password for a critical file or someone has sent you a file and forgotten to tell you the password to edit it.

Microsoft office's new (can I still call it that) xml based document formats have capacity for accidental write protection. Some of these include password protection. While this is great, particularly if sending spreadsheets to a customer; it isn't so great when HR send a file that needs to be edited and even they can't remember the password. That was the problem and thanks to Horatio and this Superuser answer. I was able to save the day and remove the password protection.