Microsoft Office Q&A: General Discussion (Word, Excel, PowerPoint...)

Nicholas King said:And you could also skip the extra multiplication—just set B1 = 1.0455 * A1

😁

but then... is that number just calculated by hand somewhere else???

Hannah Gomez5 said:you don't actually need those parentheses

The FORMULA in B1 is =0.85*A1*1.23

Thanks for the input, everyone, but I think I’ll stick with my way. That specific formula just works better for me. The base isn't always going to be 10; it shifts around all the time, so I need that flexibility...😉

Hannah Gomez5 said:Oh, please... so they just, what, calculate that number by hand somewhere off to the side???

Well, obviously—though by "by hand," I suppose she means using a Calculator or perhaps just setting up an Excel sheet.

Don't you think you might have simplified the formula just enough to once-off streamline an expression that ends up being calculated repeatedly over and over again??

Hannah Gomez5 said:you don't even need brackets
FORMULA IN B1 =0.85*A1*1.23

Sure, you could do it that way, but since the guy couldn't figure out the solution from the tutorial provided, I wrote the formula like that so he’d actually see what the 15% and 23% represent. Plus, it teaches the basic math behind it—who knows, maybe tomorrow they'll be looking for a 35% discount...

obviously, in your version, you should point out that 0.85 = 1-0.15 (15%), because from experience, some people won't get why it's written that way.😉

I don't think the goal is just handing someone the answer; it's about showing them the path so they can handle it themselves next time.

Nicholas King said:Or skip the extra multiplication: B1=1.0455*A1

Since the OP got 10.46 as the result, I'm guessing you were aiming for 10.455 being basically 10.46 (which Excel rounds to two decimals), so you just shifted the decimal point left. That's solid logic though, and it always hits the right final number no matter what you put in A1😉
Never thought of it like that, but that's a killer idea.

[edit]: my bad, didn't see those two posts above when I started typing

Nicholas King said:Didn't you just simplify the formula once one time to make an expression that's gonna be calculated over and over again??

Yeah, basically. You always gotta do a "special" calculation to figure out what number replaces that 0.85 whenever the discount changes.😉

Kyle Johnson2 said:That’s essentially how it works—you always have to manually calculate what number replaces the 0.85 whenever the discount changes 😉

I am... assuming one can mentally figure out 1 minus 0.something

something = the discount percentage

I suppose it's obvious that, say, 15% would be written as 0.15

Bradley Rivera5 said:Hey everyone!
I’d be super grateful if someone could lend me a hand here. I’m struggling to find an Excel formula that takes a number and, in the very next cell to the right, applies a 15% discount while simultaneously adding sales tax.
So, basically: I have the base price + discount + sales tax (for example, if the number is 10... I need to end up with 10.46)

Thanks a million!

Look, if your base price is sitting in cell A1, and you're dealing with a 10% margin and 15% sales tax, just pop this into cell B1: =(A1-(A1*0.10))*1.15

Walter Jackson48 said:If the base price is in cell A1—assuming your discount is 10% and sales tax is 15%—then just type =(A1-(A1*0.10))*1.15 into cell B1

👍

I assume you meant discount rather than margin...
since a margin would actually imply an increase...

Hannah Gomez5 said:👍

I assume "margin" was just a slip of the tongue here—you probably meant the discount,
because if we’re actually talking about the margin, we'd be looking at a plus

You're right, I definitely meant the discount.

Honestly, this whole debate is kind of pointless now. The boss just handed over the bare essentials: the base amount and the final total. Everything is hardcoded—the discount, the tax rate (which isn't always 23% anyway), nothing else. There aren't even fields for variable discounts, tax, or margins...
Just a quick side note, purely technical:
Kyle Johnson2, you're way better off using one long formula, just like we talked about at the start. Especially if you're linking back to specific cells for things like discounts, sales tax, or margins. That’s how you guarantee accuracy, then you just round everything at the very end.
That’s basically how pro-grade software handles it. They run all the math out to several decimal places and avoid rounding intermediate steps. If you round too early, those tiny errors start adding up across dozens of line items and create a massive headache.
It's super important when you're dealing with sales tax. Both the IRS and the clients have their own tolerance levels, especially when looking at the total tax on a huge invoice. In cases like that, it's much safer to calculate the total tax based on the total base amount rather than just adding up a bunch of individual tax lines.

Walter Jackson48 said:just put =(A1-(A1*0.10))*1.15 into cell B1

I’m with you on this formula—it’s basically just my long-winded version condensed down. Everyone sees a problem and finds their own fix; you just gotta hit that "aha!" moment. 😉

Hannah Gomez5 said:it should be obvious that you can just write 0.15 for 15%

To us? Yeah. But for some newbie asking for help? Maybe not.
You never really know what level someone's at when they reach out. You gotta remember we've got middle schoolers popping up on these forums too. 😉

Since people are talking about margins, discounts, sales tax, and percentages, here's a quick little guide for the beginners out there:

- How to calculate percentages, discounts, and sales tax in Excel

Here's the deal. I honestly have no clue how I even managed to mess this up, but now every single one of my Word documents looks exactly like this:

(image)[/IMG]

Those damn little dots between words that vanish whenever I copy-paste text elsewhere... they’re just spaces, but I don't want to see them on my screen!!😠
I was messing around in the Reference tab—index and tables... and now I have no idea what I've done to my document. Someone please help me before I lose it, I'm right in the middle of my senior thesis! 🤷 😵 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

You can just hit Ctrl/Shift/8—or, if you happen to be working in Word 2003, you might want to just click that little paragraph symbol button (the one that looks like an upside-down P)

driftingnomad68 said:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&cl...&aqi=&aql=&oq=

Thanks, but unfortunately, I already sent it that way :/ 🙂

Is there any way to stop two Microsoft macros from overriding each other?

Here’s the deal: I’ve put together a few macros to streamline my work within the Find and Replace dialog (one for bold/italic/underline, plus three more to handle black, red, and blue colors).
They all function perfectly on their own, but there’s a catch: you can't stack them. For instance, if I run a macro that sets the "search" field to "color:blue" and then follow it up with a macro that adds "format:bold," the end result isn't a combination of both (like blue bold text)—it just ends up being bold.
Is there a way to make a macro append its specific settings without wiping out the existing ones?

analogskipper742 said:Is there any way to stop two Microsoft macros from essentially overwriting one another?

It would probably be a huge help if you could just send over the actual macros. 🙂

I'm not sure if I followed you correctly:
Looking to grab a macro that can hunt down specific cells—say, ones using Calibri 11, bolded, and colored blue—and swap them out for something else? Like maybe switching them over to Arial 12, italics, and a yellow fill? Is that what you're after?

If that’s really what we're looking at, then it simply has to work. Is it possible something went sideways during the recording process? Maybe you missed a step—like forgetting to hit "Replace All" while you were capturing everything?
I just bundled everything into a single macro and it works perfectly. I'm not really sure why you went with two separate ones—maybe I totally misread what you were asking?

analogskipper742 said:(one for bold, one for italic, one for underline, plus three more for black/red/blue colors). ..............If you shove "color:blue" into the Find and Replace dialog under "search" and then run a macro that adds "format:bold," the end result won't be a combo (like blue + bold); it’ll just be bold.

Man, you're being super vague.
Look, you've got 6 Microsoft macros. If you actually specified exactly "what you're looking for" versus "what you're changing it to," just think about how many combinations that makes.
Check out this link—it might help, and there are VBA macros included (you get a download with instructions). They've got two macros on there that let you specify "exactly what you want." Like, font type, size, color, style, all that stuff. Plus one macro that swaps everything it finds based on a condition (in this case, finding red and switching it to blue).

- VBA Macro for Find and Replace in Word

Hey, does anyone happen to know where I can track down or how I actually go about installing some decent spell checkers for English, maybe some other languages too if I'm lucky? 😕
Thanks so much

So, I was just sitting here thinking about all the different ways we could set things up... what kind of tasks would you actually want your checkers to be handling?