Free 2012 Work Week Calendar

If you’re new to this site, this 2012 Work Week Calendar is based on the badge-sized calendars that my previous employer hands out every year.

For 2012, I’m including two versions of the work week calendar. The first is an ISO 8601 compliant version to match what most companies here in the US use, and the second is a work week calendar based off the Microsoft Outlook work week calendar.

I have also included a candy bar style calendar based on David Seah’s Compact Calendar.

As always this calendar is completely free to download, modify, and use.

*Please contact me with any mistakes or issues you find.

Download 2012 Work Week Calendar for Excel

• 2012 Work Week Calendar for Excel – ISO 8601 Compliant
• 2012 Work Week Calendar for Excel – Matches MS Outlook’s Calendar

Download 2012 Work Week Calendar for iWork’s Numbers

• 2012 Work Week Calendar for iWork’s Numbers – ISO 8601 Compliant
• 2012 Work Week Calendar for iWork’s Numbers – Matches MS Outlook’s Calendar

Download 2012 Work Week Calendar PDF

• 2012 Work Week Calendar PDF – ISO 8601 Compliant
• 2012 Work Week Calendar PDF – Matches MS Outlook’s Calendar

Reader’s Shared Calendars…

Previous work week calendars have been translated to other languages and country specific work weeks, so feel free to send me your updated calendar and I will be more than happy to add it to this post.

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Back by Popular Demand: Free 2011 Work Week Calendar

This work week calender is based on the badge-sized calendars that my previous employer hands out every year.

Something I’ve done a bit differently this time around is to make the calendar ISO 8601 compliant to match what most companies here in the US use; regardless, you’re more than welcome to modify and change the calendar as you see fit.

UPDATE: Reader Shelley pointed out in the comments that the calendar actually isn’t ISO 8601 compliant due to the fact that the weeks begin on Sunday, and not Monday as they do in an ISO 8601 compliant calendar.

I have also included a candy bar style calendar based on David Seah’s Compact Calendar.

As always this calendar is completely free to download, modify, and use.

2011 Work Week Calendar Download

For 2011, I have provided an Excel version (an iWork Numbers version and a PDF version are coming soon). This calendar has been tested on Excel 2007 and should be backward compatible with earlier versions of Excel.

• 2011 Work Week Calendar for Excel

*Please be sure to contact me with any mistakes or issues I may need to correct.

Reader’s Shared Calendars

Previous work week calendars have been translated to other languages and country specific work weeks, so feel free to send me your updated calendar and I will be more than happy to add it to this post.

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

*UPDATE: The calendar has been updated for 2011 and is available for download here: 2011 Work Week Calendar.

Back by Popular Demand: Free 2010 Work Week Calendar

This work week calender is based on the badge-sized calendars that my previous employer hands out every year.

Please note that this calendar is not ISO 8601 compliant; regardless, you’re more than welcome to modify and change the calendar as you see fit.

I have also included a candy bar style calendar based on David Seah’s Compact Calendar.

As always this calendar is completely free to download, modify, and use.

2010 Work Week Calendar Download

For 2010, I have provided an Excel version, an iWork Numbers version, and a PDF version. These calendars have been tested on Excel 2007 and iWork ’09, and should be backward compatible with earlier versions of these programs.

• 2010 Work Week Calendar for Excel
• 2010 Work Week Calendar for iWork Numbers
• 2010 PDF Work Week Calendar

*Please be sure to contact me with any mistakes or issues I may need to correct.

Reader’s Shared Calendars

Previous work week calendars have been translated to other languages and country specific work weeks, so feel free to send me your updated calendar and I will be more than happy to add it to this post.

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could export an Excel list of addresses to Google Earth and Google Maps? Thankfully, there are several ways to do this but the only question you need to ask yourself is, “How secure does my data need to be?”

Although Google Maps gives you the option to remove your saved maps from search results, a public URL of your map still exists and can be accessed by anyone with that URL. If in doubt, keep your map’s URL to yourself or use Google Earth instead.

Mapping Excel Data Using VBA

Process Trends created an Excel spreadsheet that incorporates the work of Juice Analytics and simon_a to geocode addresses and prepare them for Google Earth and Google Maps. To begin, download the MapExcelData.xls file and follow along.

**Attention Excel 2004 for Mac users, the MapExcelData.xls spreadsheet will not work due to the missing VBA Split function. Unfortunately, you’ll have to run MapExcelData.xls on a Windows version of Excel.

Step 1: With macros enabled, open the MapExcelData.xls spreadsheet and go to the KML_details tab. Change the document name in cell C3 to whatever you wish, and update the file path in cell C2 to indicate the name and save location of your KML file.

For example, if you want the file to be named digdug.kml and saved to your desktop, the file path will look something like this:

Step 2: Go to the data tab and starting at row 6, paste your address data in columns D through I. Leave columns A, B, and C blank since the macro will find this information for you.

Step 3: Select the rows you would like geocoded, and click the Geocode button at the top of the spreadsheet. The latitude and longitude values will begin to fill columns A, B, and C.

Step 4: Once geocoding is done, click the Gen KML File button and your KML file will be created. If you have Google Earth installed, then click the Run Google Earth button in the spreadsheet or double-click the newly generated KML file to see your addresses plotted on the globe.

In the interest of time, I’ve created a pdf that shows you how to export Google Earth locations to Google Maps if needed, or…

Bonus Tip: You can open your KML file in Google Maps without the help of Google Earth. First, upload your generated KML file to a public web space like your blog or Dropbox public folder. Next, copy and paste the URL of the file to the maps.google.com search field—click the Search Maps button and you’re done.

Feel free to give it a try with this URL:
http://theclosetentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/digdug.kml

Once your addresses are in Google Maps, you can click the Save to My Maps link and have them available whenever you need them.

Other Ways To Map Excel Data

If you don’t want to use the MapExcelData.xls spreadsheet, then batchgeocode.com allows you to create a KML file from your Excel data using their online form.

Another option is to use Dabble DB, an amazing online database tool that can generate KML files for Google Earth. Unfortunately, your data is public when using their free plan so either pay for a plan if you need privacy, or take advantage of the free 1 month private trial.

In Conclusion…

I’m hoping you can make use of this blog post, but If you’ve read this far and feel that you have no use for this information, then consider…

• Creating a map of your delivery locations
• Mapping out a road trip
• Creating a map of foreclosures or homes for sale
• Map your favorite art galleries or hole in the wall restaurants
• Map local coffee shops, cafés, and coworking spaces that offer free Wi-Fi
• Create a map of local arcades that have coin-operated Galaga machines
• Create a map of local restaurants that offer 24 hour service
• et cetera…

See any uses for exporting Excel data to Google Maps that I may have missed? If so, feel free to leave a comment!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Post Scriptum: A big Thank You goes out to the guys at REsolved LLC for the tips on their Get Your Data on Google Maps For Free video!

*UPDATE: The calendar has been updated for 2010 and is available for download here: 2010 Work Week Calendar.

Several individuals found the 2008 Work Week Calendar useful, so I’m being proactive and posting the 2009 Work Week Calendar a few weeks early. As I mentioned before, this work week calender is based on the badge-sized calendars that my previous employer used to hand out.

Please note that January 1st marks the first work week of this calendar, which isn’t ISO 8601 compliant. The only difference in this case is that the last week of December is shown as work week 1 of 2010 instead of work week 53 of 2009. Regardless, you’re more than welcome to change the last week as you see fit.

I have also included a candy bar style calendar based on David Seah’s Compact Calendar, and as always this calendar is completely free to download and use.

2009 Work Week Calendar Download

For 2009, I’m providing an Excel version, an iWork Numbers version, and a PDF version so hopefully no one gets left out.

• Microsoft Excel Version
• iWork Numbers Version
• PDF Version

Feel free to modify the calendar any way you like, and be sure to relay any mistakes or corrections I may have missed.

Reader’s Shared Calendars

• Portugese (Brazil) MS Excel Version – updated by Michael Pears
• Spanish MS Excel Version – updated by Ted Kitch

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

*UPDATE: The calendar has been updated for 2009 and is available for download here: 2009 Work Week Calendar.

Every year, my employer provides badge-sized calendars to help countdown the days until the next holiday. Seeing how giddy my coworkers get when they receive their free calendar, I thought it might be a good idea to give all readers of this blog a similar gift!

First, some bad news…

Since we’re nearing the end of January, you only get to make use of 48 workweeks instead of the normal 52. And just in case you were curious, the first workweek of 2008 was determined by the week which contained the first Thursday in January; the calendar isn’t exactly ISO 8601 compliant but it comes pretty darn close.

Now for the good news…

Just like sunburns and chicken pox, this calender is completely free! Simply CLICK HERE to download the Excel spreadsheet that contains your free 2008 workweek calendar. Feel free to print a copy for your cozy cubicle or home office. You can even send a copy as a gift to that special someone who you’ve been stalking on Facebook… or better yet just make a copy for yourself.

Included in the spreadsheet is a candy bar style calendar based on David Seah’s Compact Calendar. Feel free to modify the calendar any way you see fit, and be sure to relay any mistakes or corrections that I might have missed!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

(photo credit: since76)

Alphabetically sorting a list of names in FirstName LastName format can be simplified by using the Text to Columns wizard in Excel. Unfortunately, you can run into issues when titles, middle names, middle initials, and name suffixes are used.

Thankfully, the Team at REsolved LLC sent in this great Excel tip on how to sort a list by an embedded last name:

Clients often ask us how to alphabetically sort data in Microsoft Excel by someone’s Last Name even if the name field is formatted as “Mr. John M. Doe”. Basically, all you need to do is make a copy of the column containing the name data and use Excel’s REPLACE function in tandem with some wildcards.
 
? = Find any type of character
* = Find everything (used in tandem with ‘find everything leading up to a particular value’)
 
We recorded a screencast to show clients how to do it and hope you find the video helpful.

The solution they propose is pretty creative and can be recorded into a macro quite easily. You can view the step-by-step ‘how-to’ video below, and be sure to visit REsolved LLC to learn more about the services they provide to non-profits and independent schools. Thanks for the tip!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Here’s a relatively simple way to color a cell in Excel using a double-click instead of the toolbar’s fill option. The trick is to use some VBA code to color a cell when double clicked then clear it if double clicked again. There are various uses for something like this; one example is the DontBreakTheChain.xls spreadsheet (see Seinfeld’s Secret Motivational Technique) which allows users to track their progress by marking off each day they work towards a goal.

A variation of the code used in the DontBreakTheChain.xls spreadsheet is shown below. All you have to do is right-click on the worksheet of your choice and select “View Code”, then copy and paste the code to the sheet’s class module and presto! Sound complicated? It really isn’t, just watch the video tutorial below for an explanation and some extra tips. Hint-Hint, you can use a similar technique to color a cell with a right-click or depending on the current cell color. Want to know how, then watch the video.

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Excel.Range, Cancel As Boolean)
' This subroutine colors a cell red when double-clicked then clears it when double-clicked again.
' Some values for .ColorIndex are...
' Red = 3, Green = 4, Blue = 5, Yellow = 6, Orange = 45
' Google "VBA color palette" for more colors
 
    ' If the cell is clear
    If Target.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone Then
 
        ' Then change the background color to red
        Target.Interior.ColorIndex = 3
 
    ' Else if the cell background color is red
    ElseIf Target.Interior.ColorIndex = 3 Then
 
        ' Then clear the background
        Target.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone
 
    End If
 
    ' This is to prevent the cell from being edited when double-clicked
    Cancel = True
 
End Sub

As always, feel free to leave a comment with any questions or additional tips you might have!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

Post Scriptum: For more Excel tips, check out these posts…
10 Excel Tips to Make Your Life Easier – Part 1
10 Excel Tips to Make Your Life Easier – Part 2
How To Add a Vertical Line to an Excel XY Chart

Step 1: Create an XY (Scatter) chart…

For this example, theclosetentrepreneur.com feed subscribers for the month of May is being used.

Using the Chart Wizard, create an XY (Scatter) chart with time on the x-axis and your numeric data on the y-axis. If you want to follow the example in this tutorial, you can download the Excel spreadsheet *HERE*. Be sure to follow all the Chart Wizard steps and choose the “as object in” option to place the chart in your worksheet (we can change the location of the chart later).

Step 2: Add the vertical line data to your chart…

In a separate area on your worksheet, add the info for the vertical line data. Be sure to follow the same data structure that you used for your original data. For this example, the date when theclosetentrepreneur.com was featured on dumblittleman.com is being used as the vertical line data. It doesn’t matter what you name your y-axis data (you will see why “featured on dumblittleman.com” is being used in a moment) or what value you use as long as it is in the neighborhood of the data that has been plotted.

Once you’ve entered your vertical line data, select it and place your mouse over the select border until you see the “four arrow” cursor appear. At this point, click the selected data and drag it to your chart.

A “Paste Special” dialog box will appear, be sure that the options match those shown in the picture below:

Step 3: “Hacking” the error bars to create a vertical line…

After dropping the vertical line data in your chart, you should see a singe point appear representing your vertical line data. Click on the data point once to select it, then right click on the data point and choose “Format Data Series…”. In the “Format Data Series…” dialog box, click the “Axis” tab and select “Secondary axis”. Then click on the “Y Error Bars” tab and select the “Minus” option under Display. Change the error amount to percentage and enter 100% for the value. Click “OK” and your data point will now appear on a secondary axis with a vertical line underneath it which was created by the “minus” y-error bar. Changing the date and value of the vertical line data will move the line around as you wish, and the vertical line will remain in place when resizing or adding more data to the chart.

Tips on formatting your chart…

You’re basically done at this point and although this technique for adding a vertical line is useful, it’s not easy on the eyes. So to improve the appearance of your chart, you can format the vertical bar by clicking on it once to select it, then right clicking on the bar and selecting “Format Error Bars…” and click the “Patterns” tab to change the look of the error bar as you wish.

In addition, you can hide the secondary axis by clicking on it once to select it, then right clicking the secondary axis and select “Format Axis…”. Choose the “Patterns” tab and you can choose “None” for all the line and tick mark labels to hide the axis on the chart. In addition, you can change the scale of the axis to expand or contract the vertical line as you wish.

And last but not least, you can access the “Format Data Series” dialog box for the single vertical line data point (as was discussed above) and add the y-axis column label to your line by selecting the “Data Labels” tab and checking “Series name” under the Data Labels section. In this example, doing so will add “featured on dumblittleman.com” to our line. With a little additional formatting, you can end up with something like this:

In conclusion…

This technique may seem like a lot of work, yet it’s easy to get the hang of once you’ve done it yourself. Plus, you can change the chart any way you like and not have to worry about manually moving vertical drawn lines around to compensate for any changes. Also, the vertical line location is accurately displayed, which isn’t necessarily the case with a manually inserted line. Ultimately, there are numerous ways to insert vertical lines into an Excel chart and hopefully this technique gives you a different perspective on the process. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

10 Excel Tips to Make Your Life Easier – Part 1

Also, if you’re new to Viddler, you can click on the time tags and comments (shown as dots in the time line) to access the different tips directly, or you can just watch the video in its entirety. Anyway, here’s part 2 for your viewing pleasure.

10 Excel Tips to Make Your Life Easier – Part 2

If you’re unable to see the video below, CLICK HERE to view it on Viddler.

Tip #6) Utilizing Quick Charts

• Create a Chart – F11

Tip #7) Easily Remove Repeated Data
Tip #8) Inserting Line Breaks & Today’s Date in a Cell

• Insert a line break into a cell – Alt + Enter
  Insert today’s date in a cell – CTRL + ;

Tip #9) Insert a Picture in a Comment
Tip #10) Manipulating Strings with Functions

• Functions used in Tip #10:
• Adding Strings:
• CONCATENATE(text1,text2,text3) = text1text2text3
• Or by formula, =text1 & text2 & text3 = text1text2text3
• Remove leading or lagging spaces from text – TRIM(text)
• Grab specified number of characters from left or right side of string:
• LEFT(text,[number of characters]) for example LEFT(text1234,4) = text
• RIGHT(text,[number of characters]) for example RIGHT(text1234,4) = 1234
• Opposite of CONCATENATE – go to Data -> Text to Columns..

And as always, please feel free to leave a comment if you have a question about anything I’ve covered in this video. Also, feel free to leave any additional Excel tips that might be of use to Excel users!

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur