Anyone else have a formatting pet peeve and get annoyed when people don’t have a blank first column and row in tabs? I.e headers/data in cell A1

My first manager told me this, and I’ve followed it to a T since.

likesmart
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Nah man. I have preferred formatting. Do I blow a gasket or get annoyed if someone doesn’t follow it? Nah.

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I have a pet peeve of people who think their specific formatting way is the best and only way to do things.

likefunny
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Yes. Anyone who writes anything in cell A1 is the type of person to eat a kitkat without breaking it in half first.

likefunnysmart

Who cares what work papers look like. It’s not an art project. Super annoying when managers nit pick this stuff. (As a former senior manager)

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Also for all the consultants in this bowl, it’s already difficult to convince our clients that we deliver value. Us having sloppy deliverables only gives them one more excuse to tear us down.

Pretty much everyone can recognize and subconsciously appreciate really clean visuals, but most can’t be arsed to do it properly themselves unless they receive a plsfix from someone who decides their bonus.

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Merged cells…

likefunny

The absolute bane of my existence

feels like the table is being suffocated 😂, needs the one row/column breathing room

likefunnysmart

I have never seen this and feel bad now. I thought I was good with excel.

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Agreed and also, for the purpose of lookups/matches, why leave room for confusion about which rows and columns to reference

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Curious- why do you need to leave a first blank column and row?

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Agreed. There’s no reason for a blank row or column and actually irritating to see them. If you need this for formatting, you haven’t found page setup 🤦🏻‍♀️

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Yes I get annoyed, unless its just raw data and not analysis or for presentation

likefunny

Anyone who hides gridlines. I’ll just unhide them. More difficult to review workpapers that way.

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Still more difficult to point out a specific cell on a call. You need the gridlines to easily figure out what cell is which.

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Different font on any document drives me up the wall. We get beaten into our heads that Georgia is the best font.

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If I ever saw Georgia in a financial model I’d lose it…

likefunny

Haha I guess I struck a nerve with all these comments. Nothing gets people fired up like excel opinions

likesmart

Always a blank row and column. And I always color it gray or black or company colors, to get the default grid to disappear - do that around all visible space surrounding whatever table(s) you are showing. And make sure those extra spaces are smaller than the normal cell and uniform horizontally and vertically.

I never worked for a big box consultancy, raised on boutique where we set the stage in our area and were acquired. I have a sense of pride in deliverable quality, and you should too. I've carried that forward into tech, where people are real slobs 😀

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First column empty, number formatting (include thousands separators and set a consistent number of decimals; bonus points if you use a “123k” or “3.4m” format), clearly labeled columns with units of measurement (or separate UOM column), subtotals on top (not at the bottom), gridlines off

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When people fill with the default red and lime green. instant headache.

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I made a macro to add a 10pt row and column. Best thing I ever did for my workpapers.

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Yes

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Yes

Not one I’d ever enforce (but will change if I can) excel workbook names that aren’t title case. I also like camel case and will leave a name that’s camel case as is.

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