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I've worked adjacent to financial consultants who build excel models all day. There is such thing as an "expert" at excel. I've interviewed lots of people who s

I've worked adjacent to financial consultants who build excel models all day. There is such thing as an "expert" at excel. I've interviewed lots of people who say they "know" excel, but when you dig into it, it's the equivalent of saying they know a programming language because they know basic flow control syntax. With word, I'm not sure if you can go as deep expertise wise as excel, but there is still much more to it than knowing that you can type words and change their font as in the article.

user3939382 5y ago
Reading your comment I remembered the guy who implemented 3D doom in Excel https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/3d-engine-entirely-made-of-ms-excel-formulae-enjoy-this-doom-xls-file- https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/3d-engine-entirely-made...
3pt14159 5y ago
With Excel its: Do you know arrays, UDFs, Solver, lookups, mastery over chart design, and cell formatting. With word it's basically: Can you do a mail merge and a table of contents? Congrats. You're an expert.
- beerandt 5y ago
  I always first ask if they've ever used VBA in excel, and if so, for what? If they even know what you're talking about, then that's a quick way to skip the rest of the probing and assume they know (or can quickly figure out) the rest.
- bambax 5y ago
  No. There is such a thing as proficiency in word processing. Most people don't use styles, or use them improperly, or modify every instance randomly. They use forced line breaks to adjust page breaks because they don't know about forced page breaks, or the "keep with next" paragraph setting. They've never heard of non-breaking space. They align numbers with spaces. They don't know that you can (and should) have accented capital letters in languages such as French, and that there's a specific option to set for that. They don't understand footnotes, type the footnote text in the text itself and wonder where it's gone after page reflow. They don't know anything about ToC, or ToC formatting. They are very surprised to learn you can type in italics directly using underscores. They can't navigate a paragraph or a line using home/end buttons. They select text with the mouse, which takes like two minutes in a long document, instead of 500ms when using CTRL+Shift + End/Home, or CTRL+A. And let's not talk about composition. Alignments. Bullets, bullet types. Margins. Sections. Checking for rivers.
  - 3pt14159 5y ago
    > Alignments. Bullets, bullet types. Margins. Sections. I mean, for white collar work this is the equivalent of making sure someone knows how to use a semi-colon. It's a "skill" in scarequotes because basic proficiency is assumed and 99% of the time you don't need things to be pixel perfect and if you do you can figure it out on the fly. Compare these things to, say, knowing when and how to use Excel Solver to give a non-inferior solution set. Or fiddling around to integrate remote data feeds into a sheet for daily automation.
    - wlesieutre 5y ago
      > 99% of the time you don't need things to be pixel perfect and if you do you can figure it out on the fly You can figure it out on the fly, not everyone has that reaction to unfamiliar software
    - bambax 5y ago
      I have seen people spend (waste) an incredible amount of time readjusting page breaks because they modify something at the start of a document and all the manual empty paragraphs they put here or there don't do what they want anymore. In fact it then becomes an infinite task because every little change breaks everything else. But yes, sure, most Excel users also have no clue you can import data using SQL or that you can set calculation to manual and calculate with F9.
    - jamesliudotcc 5y ago
      You say this. But 99% of lawyers do not know how to do these things.
      - bashinator 5y ago
        What is it about doctors, lawyers, and really really basic computer proficiency?
        Scoundreller 5y ago
        Their margins can be high enough to get away without squeezing out every efficiency known to humankind. A cardiologist that pays someone to follow them around all day for the computer stuff makes 5% less than the one that DIYs it all. (And possibly makes up for it in increased billing, but it can slow things down too, especially as the interfaces improve). There’s also a level of smugness about knowing a solution off the top of your head vs. Googling or researching it using subscribed DBs (by yourself or by your “law librarian”). Personally, I’m happy if my doctor googles a solution and goes by a recent review article written by specialists in that area rather than “top of heading” with what they learned in a Continuing Ed session, marketing session or school (if it was long enough ago).
- noitsnot 5y ago
  Basically, you have an MBA.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Good luck getting references to stay in word after changes. Or using features like splitting off and merging sections of an outline. Word sucks for large reference documents and constantly breaks its very much like it’s still 1997 and shit breaks for no obvious reason
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  I spent an hour with a coworker last week trying to figure out how to remove the change history from a Word doc. We're both highly technical.
- RajBhai 5y ago
  Probably not the right forum for this, but does anyone know if it's possible to mail merge into separate Word docs, one for each recipient in the data source? I can only ever get a single document with all the outputs concatenated. My workflow requires that I send out actual mail, in which case the concatenated result doesn't matter once printed, but I'd like to keep a copy of the individual docs for record keeping.
  - 3pt14159 5y ago
    Two days later this kinda proves my point above. Had you asked about anything my OP there would have been 7 different work arounds or solutions offered up. But even on HN nobody cares enough about Word to really be a master at it because there is no point to mastery. You're not running $400m models on a Word doc.
- jmrm 5y ago
  It's funny how last time I used mail merge I was using Office 200o in Windows Me. I'm pretty curious about how many people use this kind of tools today.
chris_overseas 5y ago
There sure is: https://www.fmworldcup.com/excel-as-esports/fmwc-open/ https://www.fmworldcup.com/excel-as-esports/fmwc-open/ There's also a competition for Office in general: https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/11/22829228/excel-pros-financial-modeling-world-cup https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/11/22829228/excel-pros-fina...
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I've tried watching their latest videos and it was frustrating and weird. You see people toying with excel and somehow they manage to answer the game questions but you don't understand what they do. Often they fail and you don't know why either.
Semaphor 5y ago
I once needed to pivot a table. Tried it with excel, spent an hour googling, couldn't get it to work. Then exported it into SQL server, googled how to do it in T-sql, and was done shortly after. Respect for people who work with excel, but it's not for me.
- moron123 5y ago
  Roughly, Step 1: Insert pivot table Step 2: Set data source Step 3: set row (pivots) Step 4: set value (summary)

user3939382 5y ago

Reading your comment I remembered the guy who implemented 3D doom in Excel https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/3d-engine-entirely-made-of-ms-excel-formulae-enjoy-this-doom-xls-file- https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/3d-engine-entirely-made...

3pt14159 5y ago

With Excel its: Do you know arrays, UDFs, Solver, lookups, mastery over chart design, and cell formatting. With word it's basically: Can you do a mail merge and a table of contents? Congrats. You're an expert.

beerandt 5y ago
I always first ask if they've ever used VBA in excel, and if so, for what? If they even know what you're talking about, then that's a quick way to skip the rest of the probing and assume they know (or can quickly figure out) the rest.
bambax 5y ago
No. There is such a thing as proficiency in word processing. Most people don't use styles, or use them improperly, or modify every instance randomly. They use forced line breaks to adjust page breaks because they don't know about forced page breaks, or the "keep with next" paragraph setting. They've never heard of non-breaking space. They align numbers with spaces. They don't know that you can (and should) have accented capital letters in languages such as French, and that there's a specific option to set for that. They don't understand footnotes, type the footnote text in the text itself and wonder where it's gone after page reflow. They don't know anything about ToC, or ToC formatting. They are very surprised to learn you can type in italics directly using underscores. They can't navigate a paragraph or a line using home/end buttons. They select text with the mouse, which takes like two minutes in a long document, instead of 500ms when using CTRL+Shift + End/Home, or CTRL+A. And let's not talk about composition. Alignments. Bullets, bullet types. Margins. Sections. Checking for rivers.
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  > Alignments. Bullets, bullet types. Margins. Sections. I mean, for white collar work this is the equivalent of making sure someone knows how to use a semi-colon. It's a "skill" in scarequotes because basic proficiency is assumed and 99% of the time you don't need things to be pixel perfect and if you do you can figure it out on the fly. Compare these things to, say, knowing when and how to use Excel Solver to give a non-inferior solution set. Or fiddling around to integrate remote data feeds into a sheet for daily automation.
  - wlesieutre 5y ago
    > 99% of the time you don't need things to be pixel perfect and if you do you can figure it out on the fly You can figure it out on the fly, not everyone has that reaction to unfamiliar software
  - bambax 5y ago
    I have seen people spend (waste) an incredible amount of time readjusting page breaks because they modify something at the start of a document and all the manual empty paragraphs they put here or there don't do what they want anymore. In fact it then becomes an infinite task because every little change breaks everything else. But yes, sure, most Excel users also have no clue you can import data using SQL or that you can set calculation to manual and calculate with F9.
  - jamesliudotcc 5y ago
    You say this. But 99% of lawyers do not know how to do these things.
    - bashinator 5y ago
      What is it about doctors, lawyers, and really really basic computer proficiency?
      - Scoundreller 5y ago
        Their margins can be high enough to get away without squeezing out every efficiency known to humankind. A cardiologist that pays someone to follow them around all day for the computer stuff makes 5% less than the one that DIYs it all. (And possibly makes up for it in increased billing, but it can slow things down too, especially as the interfaces improve). There’s also a level of smugness about knowing a solution off the top of your head vs. Googling or researching it using subscribed DBs (by yourself or by your “law librarian”). Personally, I’m happy if my doctor googles a solution and goes by a recent review article written by specialists in that area rather than “top of heading” with what they learned in a Continuing Ed session, marketing session or school (if it was long enough ago).
noitsnot 5y ago
Basically, you have an MBA.
rdtwo 5y ago
Good luck getting references to stay in word after changes. Or using features like splitting off and merging sections of an outline. Word sucks for large reference documents and constantly breaks its very much like it’s still 1997 and shit breaks for no obvious reason
Consultant32452 5y ago
I spent an hour with a coworker last week trying to figure out how to remove the change history from a Word doc. We're both highly technical.
RajBhai 5y ago
Probably not the right forum for this, but does anyone know if it's possible to mail merge into separate Word docs, one for each recipient in the data source? I can only ever get a single document with all the outputs concatenated. My workflow requires that I send out actual mail, in which case the concatenated result doesn't matter once printed, but I'd like to keep a copy of the individual docs for record keeping.
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  Two days later this kinda proves my point above. Had you asked about anything my OP there would have been 7 different work arounds or solutions offered up. But even on HN nobody cares enough about Word to really be a master at it because there is no point to mastery. You're not running $400m models on a Word doc.
jmrm 5y ago
It's funny how last time I used mail merge I was using Office 200o in Windows Me. I'm pretty curious about how many people use this kind of tools today.

chris_overseas 5y ago

There sure is: https://www.fmworldcup.com/excel-as-esports/fmwc-open/ https://www.fmworldcup.com/excel-as-esports/fmwc-open/ There's also a competition for Office in general: https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/11/22829228/excel-pros-financial-modeling-world-cup https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/11/22829228/excel-pros-fina...

agumonkey 5y ago
I've tried watching their latest videos and it was frustrating and weird. You see people toying with excel and somehow they manage to answer the game questions but you don't understand what they do. Often they fail and you don't know why either.

Semaphor 5y ago

I once needed to pivot a table. Tried it with excel, spent an hour googling, couldn't get it to work. Then exported it into SQL server, googled how to do it in T-sql, and was done shortly after. Respect for people who work with excel, but it's not for me.

moron123 5y ago
Roughly, Step 1: Insert pivot table Step 2: Set data source Step 3: set row (pivots) Step 4: set value (summary)