Quattro Pro Formulas, Functions, and Macros Charles M. Cork, III March 27, 2018 Contents Introductioni The reason for this book............................ i Conventions................................... ii QP quirks, generally .............................. iii I Quattro Pro Formulas1 1 Basic Formulas2 Relative v. absolute addresses......................... 3 Relative (“R1C1”) v. normal reference style ................. 5 Combining text: Text (string) formulas.................... 5 Combining text and the content of cells ................... 6 How to set up a database showing interest compounding monthly..... 6 How to set monthly installments so that interest payments are equal for each payment............................... 7 How to type the date of every Friday in a year in a column......... 7 2 Block (Array) Formulas9 Uses of block formulas............................. 9 How to count or sum all of the numbers in a column that are less than a certain number.............................. 11 How to count all entries in a column that equal the data in this/each row . 11 How to count or sum all cells that meet two conditions........... 12 How to add a running total of all cells, or of only cells meeting a condition 12 How to sum the numbers that come within a date range.......... 13 How to get the average of numbers in a column that meet a condition . 14 How to get the maximum and minimum number that meets a condition . 15 How to get the maximum value in a column on a certain date . 15 How to get the minimum value in a column on a certain date . 16 How to mark possible duplicate entries within a time range . 17 II Quattro Pro Functions 18 3 Conditional functions 20 @IF ....................................... 20 @CHOOSE ................................... 20 i 4 The Properties of a Cell, Page, File, etc. 22 @CELL, @CELLPOINTER, @CELLINDEX................... 22 @IS*** logical functions............................ 24 @TYPE ..................................... 25 @N, @S..................................... 25 @PROPERTY.................................. 25 @COMMAND.................................. 26 @FILEEXISTS.................................. 26 How (not) to test whether a cell is blank................... 26 How to identify the last non-blank cell in a column............. 27 How to enter multiple lines of text in a single cell.............. 28 How to determine the width and height of a row in inches......... 28 Appendix: Cell (Active_Block) Properties................... 29 Appendix: Worksheet (Active_Page) Properties ............... 30 Appendix: Notebook Properties........................ 31 Appendix: Application Properties....................... 32 5 The Coordinates of a Cell or Block 34 @@ ....................................... 34 @ADDRESS................................... 36 @OFFSET.................................... 37 Comparing @ADDRESS and @OFFSET.................... 37 How to replace named blocks with @@ ................... 38 How to get the attributes of a single cell by indirect reference . 38 @BLOCKNAME, @BLOCKNAMES....................... 39 6 Functions for Text (Strings) 40 Creating text: @CHAR, @REPEAT ...................... 40 Deleting non-text: @CLEAN, @TRIM..................... 40 Combining text: @CONCATENATE...................... 40 Dividing text: @LEFT, @RIGHT, @MID, @FIELD.............. 41 Modifying or deleting text: @SUBSTITUTE, @REPLACE, @SETSTRING . 41 Modifying the case of text: @UPPER, @LOWER, @PROPER . 42 Other basic functions: @LENGTH, @FIND.................. 42 How to count the number of instances of a particular character in a cell . 42 How to count the number of words in a particular cell ........... 43 How to return the last word in a series of words............... 43 How to return the last name in a string, ignoring suffixes.......... 46 How to generate a new file name based on the current notebook . 47 7 Math Functions 49 Adding: @SUM, @TOTAL, @SUBTOTAL, @SUMIF............. 49 Averaging: @AVG, @PUREAVG........................ 50 Extremes: @MAX, @MIN, @PUREMAX &-MIN, @LARGEST, @SMALLEST 50 Determining relative rank: @RANK...................... 50 Rounding/Trimming: @ROUND, @INT, @TRUNC ............. 51 Remainders and Patterns: @MOD....................... 52 How to return the difference between two numbers if positive, or zero if negative.................................. 52 How to return the difference between two numbers as a positive number . 52 How to mark the largest value in a column.................. 53 How to compare value changes from last year when this year is not complete 53 How to sum every other number in a column ................ 54 How to average the preceding three numbers in a column, not counting blanks.................................... 54 How to sum the contents of a column if rows or columns are inserted . 56 8 Date and Time Functions 58 Current date and time: @TODAY, @NOW.................. 58 Dates and their components: @DATE, @YEAR, @MONTH, @DAY . 58 Information about a date: @DATEINFO ................... 59 Days of the week: @WEEKDAY, @WKDAY.................. 60 Comparing dates: @DATEDIF......................... 60 Other date functions.............................. 61 Time and components: @TIME, @HOUR, @MINUTE, @SECOND . 61 How to display a message after a certain time of the day.......... 61 How to sum data by year............................ 61 How to sum data by month and year..................... 62 How to determine the Tuesday after or before a date............ 63 How to set up delivery tables ......................... 64 How to determine the number of Wednesdays in a given month . 65 9 Converting between Text and Numbers 68 Converting numbers to generic number-like text: @STRING, @FIXED . 68 Converting numbers to currency text: @DOLLAR, @DOLLARTEXT . 69 Other conversions: @FRACTION, @CHAR.................. 70 Converting text to numbers: @VALUE, @DATEVALUE, @TIMEVALUE . 70 How to convert a number to left-padded text ................ 71 How to convert numeric text formatted as #- into usable numbers . 71 How to convert a number to feet and inches................. 72 How to convert a date number into the day or month as text . 72 How to convert numeric dates into text dates ................ 73 How to convert text dates/times into numeric dates/times................................ 73 How to convert decimal time to hours and minutes............. 74 How to convert clock times to seconds.................... 74 How to add one hour to a given time..................... 74 How to create a chronologically sortable column from text numbers . 75 Appendix: Custom numeric formats...................... 76 10 Getting information about and from a database 78 Getting the width and height of a block: @COLS, @ROWS, @SHEETS . 79 Getting column and row numbers for a block: @COLUMN, @ROW . 79 Column identifiers: @INDEXTOLETTER, @LETTERTOINDEX . 79 Counting (non-)blank cells: @COUNT, @COUNTBLANK.......... 80 Counting conditionally: @COUNTIF ..................... 80 Basic functions for extracting numeric information from a database . 81 Retrieval of last entry: @LASTCELLVALUE.................. 81 Retrieval of parallel value: @LOOKUP .................... 81 Retrieval by index value: @VLOOKUP, @HLOOKUP, @VHLOOKUP . 82 Retrieval by column and row: @INDEX, @XINDEX............. 83 Comparing the preceding functions...................... 84 Retrieval by text coordinates: @@ ...................... 84 Determining column/row offset from matches: @MATCH ......... 84 Getting coordinates of extreme values: @MAXLOOKUP, @MINLOOOKUP . 86 How (not) to derive coordinates relative to the current cell......... 86 How to retrieve data from cells relative to the current cell ......... 89 How to identify the first blank row and cell in a column of data . 90 How to get the coordinates of a continuous column of entries . 91 How to count the non-blank cells in the index column of a given block . 92 How to get the coordinates of a named block ................ 92 How to get the value in column that is parallel to the largest value in another column. ............................. 93 How to get every 10th value in a column................... 93 How to get/sum the last five values in a column to which data is added . 93 How to average the last three numbers, skipping blanks .......... 94 How to determine if the cellpointer is in a particular block......... 95 How to determine if a value is in a column or row.............. 96 How to mark duplicates in a column ..................... 96 How to return the (first) matching row of data in a database . 97 How to find and return matches after the first one.............. 97 How to find the top three scores in a database . 101 III Quattro Pro Macros 105 11 Introduction to Quattro Pro Macros 106 Macro commands and text........................... 106 Normal sequence of commands........................ 108 Making commands conditional: {If} ..................... 108 Detouring or Breaking: {Cell} and {Branch Cell}, {Quit}, {Return} . 109 Error handling: {OnError}........................... 110 Pausing: {?} and {Wait}............................ 110 Repetition (Looping) by branching back ................... 111 Repetition for a specific number of loops: {For} . 111 Speed #1 – Display Options: {WindowsOff} and Redraw . 113 Speed #2 – Recalculation Options: Manual, {Calc} and {Recalc} . 115 Speed #3 – Close other notebooks and minimize use of functions . 116 Automating startup and shutdown macros.................. 116 Naming cells to expedite launching macros . 116 Creating toolbar icons and