Mac Abacus Manual
Mac Abacus Manual
Mac Abacus Manual
8.3.2
October 2016
Macabacus Manual
Copyright 2016 Macabacus, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
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3.3
4.
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4.2
4.3
5.
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1. Getting Started
1.1 Preface
Contents of This Manual
This manual includes descriptions of most of the tools and features included in Macabacus add-ins for
Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, including both their intended usage and customization, as
applicable. Unless otherwise noted, the descriptions of Macabacus functionality contained herein apply
to the full version of Macabacus, not Macabacus Lite. While some sections of this manual describe
functionality common to both Macabacus and Macabacus Lite, those descriptions may have limited
applicability to Macabacus Lite.
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1.2 Installation
1.2.1 Install Macabacus
For problems installing Macabacus, please refer to the troubleshooting guide.
Over-the-Shoulder Installs
If an administrator performs an over-the-shoulder install for you, you may need to log out of
Windows and log back in, in order for the installation to finish.
The installer will prompt you to download and install any of the following Microsoft components (i.e.,
prerequisites) required by Macabacus that are missing on your system. If the installer is unable to
download or install a prerequisite for any reason, click the applicable link below to download the
prerequisite directly from Microsoft and install the prerequisite before attempting to install
Macabacus again.
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 (x86 and x64)
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (x86 and x64)
Windows Installer 3.1
3. Activate or Evaluate
If you have not previously used Macabacus, Macabacus will prompt you for an email address upon
starting Excel, PowerPoint, or Word. Enter either (a) the email address of an authorized user to
activate Macabacus, if you have already purchased a subscription, or (b) the email address you
expect to use for managing your Macabacus subscription if you later decide to purchase Macabacus,
to initiate your free trial.
You can activate Macabacus at any time by clicking the Macabacus > Activate button and entering a
valid email address or legacy activation code. If you are a corporate user and your email address is
not recognized when you try to activate, ask your Macabacus account administrator to configure your
access.
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Enterprise
Personal
Comments
Excel
Shortcuts
Accelerator
Keys
Color Palette
Color Cycles
AutoColors
The default font and border colors are black, but can be
changed if other colors are required.
Number
Format Cycles
Custom Styles
Presentation
Template
Library
Templates
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Setting
Enterprise
Personal
Comments
Library
Content
Active
Template
Once you have configured and published your Macabacusenabled presentation templates, select one as the active (i.e.,
default) template.
Standard
Sizes
Slide Stamps
Default Stamp
New
Presentation
Behavior
Select which special slides (e.g., title page) and sections (i.e.,
flysheets) are included by default in new Macabacus-enabled
presentations. You can also specify whether you want to use
the active Macabacus-enabled template for new presentations
created using native PowerPoint functionality.
Shared
Settings
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PowerPoints Undo functionality may not behave as expected after using some Macabacus tools.
New agenda tools introduced in Macabacus for PowerPoint v3.0 are not available in PowerPoint
2007.
With the Insert Content dialog open, PowerPoint may remain open even after closing all
presentations.
Template Wizard will not close automatically when the presentation template is closed.
When updating a chart linked to an Excel chart, the charts original y-axis number formatting may not
be preserved if it differs from the number formatting in the source chart.
When updating a chart linked to an Excel range, chart data for the chart will not be activated.
Some ribbon controls enabled state may not refresh automatically upon closing presentations.
Words Undo functionality may not behave as expected after using some Macabacus tools.
With the Insert Content dialog open, PowerPoint may remain open even after closing all
presentations.
When updating a chart linked to an Excel chart, the charts original y-axis number formatting may not
be preserved if it differs from the number formatting in the source chart.
When updating a chart linked to an Excel range, chart data for the chart will not be activated.
Some ribbon controls enabled state may not refresh automatically upon closing presentations.
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2. Core Functionality
2.1 General Usage Tips
The following guidelines apply to using Office with Macabacus, specifically; using Office with add-ins,
generally; or using Office, generally.
Multiple Instances
For reliable performance, ensure that only a single instance of each Office application (i.e., Excel,
PowerPoint, and Word, as applicable) is running. To do this, go to the Details tab in Task Manager and
confirm that excel.exe, powerpnt.exe, and winword.exe appear only once. Add-ins cannot reliably
determine to which instance of an Office application to refer when multiple instances are running. Some
Macabacus tools display warning message when multiple instances are detected, while others may fail
silently.
Multiple instances are most common in Excel 2010 and earlier versions, and are sometimes used to
display multiple workbooks in separate windows (so that two workbooks can be viewed on two separate
monitors). Subsequent versions of Excel use a single document interface (SDI) which obviates the need
for multiple instances because workbooks are now shown in separate windows with their own interfaces.
In fact, it is very difficult to run multiple instances simultaneously in Office 2013 and later. Accordingly,
multiple instances are rarely a problem in Office 2013 and later.
Terminal Servers
When running Office applications in a terminal server or Citrix environment, rather than locally,
multiple running instances of Office applications are common. When Macabacus detects these
environments, it ignores multiple instances to allow the requested operation to proceed. However,
this may result in unexpected behavior if Macabacus cannot determine to which instance to refer.
Elevated Applications
If one Office application is running with elevated privileges (i.e., run as administrator) while another is not,
the two apps will not be able to see each other (for example, when exporting from Excel to PowerPoint).
If Macabacus reports that an Office application is not open, even though it clearly is, check whether one
app is running with elevated privileges while the other is not.
SharePoint
Do not open Office files read-only from SharePoint. Unfortunately, read-only may be the default in your
environment, but you should explore the many workarounds described on the Internet.
Protected View
Most add-in operations are unavailable while workbooks, presentations, and documents are open in
Protected View, indicated by a yellow warning bar below the ribbon.
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Worksheet Protection
Some Macabacus tools may not behave as expected when the worksheet on which they are performing
an operation is protected. Some Macabacus tools prompt you to unprotect sheets, and others do not. If
you unprotect a worksheet after being prompted by Macabacus to do so, Macabacus cannot re-protect
the sheet after the operation is complete. Protection must be manually reapplied.
Shared Workbooks
Do not share workbooks using Excels native sharing capability (Review > Share Workbook). Shared
workbooks suffer a loss of functionality and create problems for add-ins trying to work with them. Shared
workbooks display [Shared] in the application window title.
Cell Selection
Limit the cells in your selection to those cells with which you actually need to work before performing
certain Macabacus operations. Macabacus may inspect or modify each cell in your selection individually,
and when you select an entire column to modify a single cell in that column, for example, the operation
may take longer than necessary.
Calculation Settings
For optimal Excel performance in most scenarios, use the following calculation settings:
Some Macabacus tools disable calculations while performing computationally intensive operations, and
then re-enable calculations when complete. Other Macabacus tools do not. If Macabacus seems to be
slowing down Excel, ensure that your calculation settings are configured as above.
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Multiple Instances
When multiple instances of Office applications are running, add-ins cannot reliably determine which
instance to reference. Therefore, to performing certain operations like exporting cells to PowerPoint,
Macabacus requires single instances of applicable Office applications. Multiple instances are most
common in Excel 2007 and 2010, but are rarely a problem in subsequent versions.
Export as Picture
Export the selected cell range or chart to your PowerPoint presentation or Word document as an
enhanced metafile picture.
Recommendation
Unless you are exporting a single cells value as text, exporting cells and charts as pictures is
generally the preferred way to export, as pictures produce the most reliable and expected result.
Macabacus automatically hides error checking and cell comment indicators (the little green and red
triangles in the corners of cells), and blue Page Break Preview borders, before copying cells to be pasted
into PowerPoint/Word as pictures. When the export operation is complete, Macabacus reverts these
settings to their original states.
Export as Table
Export the selected cell range to PowerPoint/Word as a table. You may prefer this option if you plan to
make formatting changes to the data in PowerPoint/Word that you do not intend to reflect in the source
workbook.
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Export as Chart
Export the selected cell range or chart to PowerPoint/Word as a chart. Exporting cells in this manner may
be preferable when you do not wish to include the chart in your workbook. However, it is generally a best
practice to include the chart in your workbook, format it to your liking, and export it as a picture. When
exporting charts in this manner, you may prefer this option if you plan to make formatting changes to the
chart in PowerPoint/Word that you do not intend to reflect in the source workbook.
Export as Text
In Word, you can import the text in a single cell in line with other text. This is useful when writing memos
that contain lots of data sourced from your spreadsheets that can be updated with just a few mouse
clicks. In PowerPoint, you can also import text in a single cell into a selected shape, but the entire text
within the shape will be replaced with the cells text, making this useful in fewer circumstances.
Unfortunately, PowerPoint is not built to support single-cell inline text linking.
Destination Shapes
A shape that is selected in PowerPoint or Word upon an import/export operation is called the destination
shape. Whether or not a destination shape is selected, and the type of destination shape, if any,
determines placement and sizing of the pasted range/chart on the destination slide or in the destination
document.
PowerPoint Placement
What is a Placeholder?
To understand destination shapes in PowerPoint, it is important to understand PowerPoint
placeholders. In PowerPoint, a placeholder shape is a box with a dotted outline, designed for the
placement of content on the slide. The placeholder shape is most commonly used for text, although
other types of placeholders may accommodate other content types. Text placeholders usually
contain placeholder text that disappears when you begin typing within the placeholder. A placeholder
can only accept the type of content for which it is designed. For example, you cannot place a picture
in a text placeholder; there are other placeholder types that can accommodate pictures.
Placement of pasted objects in PowerPoint is summarized as follows:
If any destination shape is selected, the pasted object (e.g., picture, table) will be inserted onto the
slide at the top left position of the destination shape.
If the destination shape is a placeholder that accepts the type of shape being pasted, then the pasted
object is inserted into the placeholder.
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If the destination shape is a placeholder that does not accept the type of shape being pasted, then the
pasted object is positioned on top of the placeholder.
If the destination shape is NOT a placeholder, but another type of shape, then the pasted object
replaces the destination shape, and the destination shape is deleted.
If no destination shape is selected, then the pasted object is placed either at the center or top left
corner of the slide, depending on your import/export settings (see below).
Word Placement
Placement of pasted objects in Word is summarized as follows:
If a destination shape is selected and that shape is an inline shape, the pasted object is inserted into
the document at the same point as the destination shape, and the destination shape will be deleted.
If a destination shape is selected and that shape is a floated shape, the pasted object is inserted into
the document at the same top left coordinates as the destination shape, and the destination shape
will be deleted.
If no destination shape is selected, then the pasted object is placed either in line with text at the
cursor, or floated over text, depending on your import/export settings (see below).
If the destination shape is a table and more than one cellor the entire tableis selected, the
placement described above applies. If a single cell in a Word table is selected, the pasted object is
inserted into that cell.
Size Matching
When a destination shape is selected in PowerPoint or Word, you can match the width, height, both width
and height, or neither dimension of the pasted object to the destination shape. These options are set with
checkboxes labeled Width and Height on the Macabacus tab in the Import group in PowerPoint and Word,
and in the Export group in Excel. If no destination shape is selected, pasted objects will be inserted at
their original sizes.
Exporting Pictures
When exporting charts or cells to PowerPoint/Word as pictures, Macabacus transparently changes the
zoom level of the source sheet to 100% before copying the chart or cells, and then restores the zoom
level to its original value once the operation is complete. This may result in pictures that do not exactly
match what you see in Excel if your zoom level is not already set to 100%, because text wrapping and
chart elements may display differently at different zoom levels. This occasionally happens with charts,
but is less common with cell ranges. If this happens, ensure that your chart or cells appear correctly at
100% zoom prior to exporting to PowerPoint/Word.
Recolor Fonts
A properly built spreadsheet will use font color coding to highlight the nature and/or function of cells.
These colors are specified in Macabacus AutoColor settings. While color coding your spreadsheets is
good practice, these colors have no place in your presentation materials. With this option enabled,
Macabacus recolors fonts of exported cells that use Recolor colors to your default font color (usually
black) upon exporting, without affecting colors in the source workbook.
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Remove Gridlines
The use of gridlines in Excel is a personal preference. Rarely should they appear in presentation
materials, however. When you export cells as a picture with this option enabled, Macabacus excludes
gridlines from the picture without affecting the visibility of gridlines in the source workbook.
Copy Appearance
When exporting a range/chart as a picture, you can specify whether you want the picture to resemble its
display on screen, or appear as it will look when printed. In practice, there may be little or no visual
difference between the two.
PowerPoint Placement
When exporting cells/charts to PowerPoint and no destination shape is selected, you can specify whether
pasted objects are inserted at the center of the slide or at the top left corner of the slide.
Word Placement
When exporting cells/charts to Word and no destination shape is selected, you can specify whether you
want the pasted object inserted in line with text or floated over text.
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Unreliable linking Native Office links to Excel are easily broken because Office links to a cell range
address, not the range itself. Suppose you copied range A1:A5 in your source workbook and then
pasted it as a link in PowerPoint. Now, when you insert a single row above original cell A1 in your
source workbook, the link still refers to cells A1:A5, rather than A2:A6, as we would expect.
Undesirable output formatting When you paste cells as links natively in PowerPoint/Word, any
features or formatting present in the source range will be present in the output. This includes font
color-coding, red cell comment indicators, green formula inconsistency indicators, blue page break
preview borders, and gridlines. These features and formatting have no place in your presentationquality materials.
Bloated file size When pasting cells or charts into PowerPoint/Word as links, you must paste
embedded workbooks. If you have a presentation with twenty tables and charts linked to Excel, you
will have twenty copies of the source workbook embedded within your presentation. This may
increase the file size of your presentations and documents considerably.
Reliable linking When Macabacus links to a cell range, it links to the range object itself rather than
the range address. This results in robust links that can only be broken if the linked range is deleted
altogether or the source workbook is moved, renamed, or deleted. To do this, Macabacus uses range
names that refer to linked ranges and are independent of their actual addresses. This is the same
approach used by leading vendors of similar linking technologies (e.g., FactSet/DealMaven).
Control over output formatting Macabacus can automatically recolor certain fonts to your default
font color (typically black), hide gridlines, hide cell comment and formula inconsistency indicators,
hide blue page break preview borders, hide chart borders, and more when exporting cells to
PowerPoint/Word to give your output a professional appearance. Many of these options are
customizable, and can be turned off if not desired.
Smaller file sizes Macabacus lets you export cells to PowerPoint/Word as linked pictures that are
much smaller in size (in terms of bytes) than embedded workbooks.
Version control Macabacus automatically detects the source range or chart in open workbooks to
provide a seamless linking experience in a variety of workflow scenarios. Macabacus also checks for
newer versions of the source workbook by inspecting the file name, among other properties, of other
workbooks in the same folder. If potentially newer versions of the source workbook are found,
Macabacus prompts you to relink to a newer workbook or update from the original source workbook.
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Appending version numbers to your workbooks names (e.g., Model v2.xlsx) or dates will help
Macabacus identify newer versions of source workbooks.
More export options With Macabacus, you can export a cell range or chart to PowerPoint/Word
and paste it as a picture (recommended), table, chart, embedded workbook, or text, as applicable. In
Word, specifically, you can export the value of a single cell as in-line text within a paragraph, which is
extremely useful for authoring memos containing spreadsheet datasomething that cannot be
achieved using native Office linking.
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If the workbook in which the source range/chart is ultimately found does not have the same file path as
the workbook to which you originally linked, Macabacus transparently re-links to the former workbook.
Updating Links
Select one or more linked shapes in PowerPoint or Word and click the Macabacus > Update Link button.
Neither the source workbook nor Excel need to be open to update linked shapes; Macabacus will open
them as required. If you have appended version numbers (generally recommended) or dates to your file
names (e.g., My_Model_v4.xlsx or Balance Sheet 2015-12-31.xlsx), Macabacus automatically searches
for file names with more recent version numbers and dates in the same folder as the current source
workbook. If any potentially newer versions of the source workbook are found, Macabacus prompts you
to relink to them when updating links. For Macabacus to find newer versions of source workbooks,
version numbers and dates must appear at the end of the file name. If you use a date in your file name,
the date must be separated from the rest of the file name by a space or underscore character.
Editing Links
Select one or more linked shapes in PowerPoint or Word and click the Macabacus > Edit Link button. This
opens the Edit Link dialog that allows you to change the source workbook, source range, source chart, or
linked shape type. For example, you can use this dialog to relink a linked shape to a newer version of the
source workbook, and change the linked shape from an embedded workbook to a picture. Links do not
update automatically after editing themyou must initiate a link update separately.
View Source
Select one or more linked shapes in PowerPoint or Word and click the Macabacus > View Source button.
Macabacus will navigate to the source range or chart. If the source workbook is not already open,
Macabacus will open it.
Break Link
Select one or more linked shapes in PowerPoint or Word and click the Macabacus > Break Link button.
This removes the link between the shape and its underlying Excel data.
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operations described above on multiple linked shapes at once. For example, you would use this dialog to
relink all linked shapes in a presentation to a newer version of the source workbook.
Find / Replace
When you move or rename folders containing presentations and documents with Macabacus links, those
links may no longer point to the correct source files. To point links to the correct files after moving or
renaming folders, use the Find/Replace tab in the Manage Links dialog. Specify the old text in source file
paths you want to replace, and the new text you want to replace it with. You can perform this operation
on all links within the active presentation or document, or all presentations and documents in a folder.
You should spot check the results of your find/replace operation once it is complete.
To minimize the risk of inadvertent mislinking in a large number of files caused by an improper
find/replace operation, you must be a Macabacus account administrator or a Windows administrator to
perform a find/replace operation on all presentations or documents in a folder. This feature is not
available in SharePoint computing environments.
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2.4 Libraries
2.4.1 Overview
Macabacus libraries are repositories for content and templates intended for frequent reuse that facilitate
the standardization and preparation of materials produced by you or your organization. Up to three
libraries can be created with Macabacusa personal library intended for use by a single Macabacus user,
a team library to be shared by users in a group, and a company library to be shared by all users in an
organization. Macabacus libraries are similar to PowerPoints native Slide Library, except that (a)
Macabacus requires neither the Professional Plus version of Office nor SharePoint to deliver such
functionality, and (b) Macabacus lets you add more than just slides to the library.
Whats in a Library?
A Macabacus library may contain four types of content:
Slides
PowerPoint slides that are commonly used in presentations, such as team pages, bios,
and creds (tombstone) pages
Shapes
Office shapes that are commonly used in presentations, workbooks, and documents,
such as Harvey Balls, clip art, etc.
Images
Charts
Collections of pre-formatted charts that are pre-populated with dummy data and
commonly used in workbooks, presentations, or documents, such as waterfall charts,
Marimekko charts, etc.
PowerPoint presentation template (.potx) files used to define layouts, formatting, etc.,
for your presentations
Model
Templates
Financial or other models intended for use as starting points when building new models
in Excel
Document
Templates
The term template is used here loosely, as template normally refers to .xltx/.xltm and .dotx/.dotm files
in the context of Excel and Word, respectively.
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Linking to Content
You can optionally link slides or shapes inserted into PowerPoint via the Library pane to their source
presentations, so they can be updated with a click of the same Macabacus > Update Link button used to
update Excel links. To link inserted slides and shapes, check the Link to Source checkbox in the Library
pane. Linking to image content is not possible. Read more about linking with PowerPoint slides/shapes.
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Using Templates
Presentation templates in your libraries are used by several of Macabacus for PowerPoints presentation
automation tools, and require specific configuration in order to work with these tools. You use a
presentation template in your library by setting it to the active template, as discussed in another section
of this manual. Spreadsheets and document templates, on the other hand, are simply collections of
useful workbooks and documents intended to serve as starting points or building blocks for creating
financial models or a new fax cover page , for example. You use model and document templates by
accessing them from the Macabacus > New menu in Excel and Word.
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Each worksheet in the workbook should contain only a single chart, its chart data, and any
instructions you want to provide for the user.
In the chart data, clearly identify which cells contain dummy data that should be replaced, perhaps
by changing the cells font or fill colors.
Using Excels Selection Pane, give each chart a name that describes its type, layout, or intended use
to help users identify and find charts more easily in the Library pane.
Ensure there is no extraneous information in the workbook you are publishing, such as unused range
names, unused styles, links to other workbooks, etc. You may consider using some of Macabacus
workbook optimization or Prepare to Share tools in this step.
The workbook should not contain chart sheets.
See the workbook containing charts that installs with Macabacus as part of the sample library for
examples, if desired.
When you are ready, click the Macabacus > Settings > Libraries > Publish Content > Publish Charts button
in Excel to publish the charts in the active workbook to the desired library.
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document group. A large organization might create separate document groups for different business
units.
Republishing
You can republish content and templates using the same processes described above. Ensure that any
content files/folders being republished have the same name as those that were originally published to
ensure that the old versions are overwritten. Macabacus will prompt you to confirm your intent to
overwrite existing library content/templates.
Content Links
Slides and shapes published to a library are invisibly tagged with information that supports linking
from other presentations. Therefore, when making changes to library content, such as republishing,
use the Migrate Links tool to ensure that link information is not accidentally removed.
Broken Links
Deleting a presentation from a library breaks any links to slides/shapes in that presentation.
Working Offline
You can work with your remote library content and templates even when disconnected from the Internet
or the network on which remote libraries are stored. When Macabacus is unable to connect to a remote
library, it will use a locally cached version of the library instead. Macabacus automatically caches remote
libraries at the frequency you specify in the Library Manager dialog (the default is every seven days). This
setting can be shared as part of enterprise configuration so that remote libraries will be cached at the
desired frequency for all Macabacus users. Automatic caching, when required, occurs in the background
upon starting Excel, PowerPoint, or Word.
When inserting cached library content using the Library pane in PowerPoint, the option to link inserted
slides and shapes to the library is disabled. A message in the Library pane notifies the user when cached
content is displayed.
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Administrator Privileges
End users without administrator privileges will be unable to make changes to Macabacus settings
that are shared. Keep this in mind when selecting which settings to share.
Common Settings
Color Palette
Standard Sizes
Keyboard Shortcuts
Tab Accelerator
Keys
Keys that activate the Macabacus tabs in the Office ribbon, which can be
customized to avoid conflict with other add-ins. For example, H is the
accelerator key for the Home tab.
Company Library
Path
Folder path to the company library containing reusable content and templates.
Library Cache
Frequency
Frequency with which remote (network) libraries are cached locally for working
with library content and templates offline.
Software Updates
Send Usage
Statistics
Show tools in the ribbon or other Macabacus interfaces that are in beta testing,
and which may be removed or changed extensively in subsequent releases.
Support Email
PowerPoint Settings
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New Presentation
Slides
Sets which specially designated slides (e.g., cover page, table of contents, legal
notices, etc.) are automatically included when creating new presentations using
a Macabacus-enabled template.
Override Native
New Presentation
Agenda
Slide Stamps
New Presentation
Default Stamp
The default stamp, if any, that will be automatically applied to slides in a new
presentation.
Excel Settings
Color Cycles
Collections of colors through which cell font, fill, and border colors are cycled
when the applicable shortcuts are keyed repeatedly.
AutoColor Settings
The font color scheme used for coloring cells based on their contents (e.g.,
inputs, links to other sheets, external data, etc.).
Default Colors
The default font and border colors (typically black) used for cell font recoloring
and cell border coloring, respectively.
Number Format
Cycles
Number formats like percentages and currencies applied to cells using Number
Format Cycles.
Custom Style
Cycles
Cells styles that modify multiple cell formatting properties (e.g., number format,
colors, and border styles) and are applied to cells using Custom Style Cycles.
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The next time users within your organization sign into the Macabacus add-in in Excel, PowerPoint, or
Word, Macabacus will automatically download your shared settings from the Macabacus server and
make them immediately available.
To make changes to shared settings, open the Enterprise Configuration dialog, check/uncheck the
desired settings, and click the Publish Now button. The existing shared settings stored in the cloud will
be overwritten with the new settings.
Network Access
End users require read access to the network location of the shared settings configuration file.
Once you have moved the shared settings configuration file to an appropriate network location, the end
users computers need to know where the file is located. This is accomplished via a registry keyshown
in the Registry section of the Enterprise Configuration dialogthat instructs Macabacus where to find the
configuration file. This registry key must be replicated on each Macabacus users computer. The next
time users start Office applications for which Macabacus is installed, Macabacus will automatically
import shared settings from the path specified in the registry if there is an update. Upon closing the
Enterprise Configuration dialog, this registry key will be created/updated on the administrators computer.
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Trial Mode
If Macabacus is in trial mode, settings will not back up automatically to the cloud. You must create a
Macabacus account by purchasing a subscription and activate Macabacus to use this feature.
If you chose not to send usage data to Macabacus, your computing environment does not support
communication with Macabacus server, Macabacus is in trial mode, or for any other reason, you can
manually back up your settings to an XML file by clicking the Back Up button on the Macabacus >
Settings > Back Up/Import/Reset menu.
Import Settings
You can import settings saved to the cloud or an XML file by clicking the Macabacus > Settings > Back
Up/Import/Reset > Import button. Additionally, you can download settings saved to the cloud as an XML
file from within your Admin Console.
Reset Settings
If you need to revert to Macabacus default settings, click the Reset button found on the same menu. Any
shared settings published by your organization will overwrite the default settings upon reset.
Keyboard Shortcuts
To restore shortcut keystroke settings backed up in earlier versions of Macabacus, click the Restore
Settings button on the Macabacus > Settings > Keyboard menu. To reset shortcut keystrokes, use the
Shortcut Manager.
Page 28
3. Excel Tools
3.1 Formatting
3.1.1 Cycles Overview
At the core of Macabacus formatting functionality are cycles. Cycles expedite most cell formatting
operations, eliminating nearly 100% of the time required to perform them in most cases. For example,
repeating the Fill Color Cycle shortcut keystroke three times will apply a different fill color to the selected
cells with each keystroke. When the last format in the cycle is reached, keying the cycles shortcut again
will apply the first format in the cycle. All cycles can be triggered using keyboard shortcuts, although you
can alternatively apply any cycle format using buttons on the Macabacus tab (for example, the
Macabacus > Format > Color > Fill Colors menu).
Configuring a Cycle
Limit styles, colors, etc. in each cycle to six to reduce cycling time and improve workbook
readability/consistency. Sort items in each cycle by decreasing frequency of use for faster modeling.
Macabacus formatting cycles always start at the beginning of the cycle. This ensures that you can reach
the third style in a cycle by keying the cycles shortcut exactly three times, without pausing to give
consideration to the existing formatting of the selected cell(s). The alternative approach calls for
inspecting the existing format of cells and then determining how many keystrokes are required to reach
the desired cycle, and which format to apply next in the cycle. This involves greater processing time by
you and Macabacus, and is ultimately slower (although more intuitive to some).
In this manual you will find
3.1.2 Colors
Macabacus includes several cycles and other tools for coloring cell fonts, cell backgrounds, cell borders,
and chart elements. Colors can be customized in the Application Settings dialog on the Colors tab. When
customizing these colors, you can choose from any color in your Macabacus color palette. If you wish to
include a color in your cycle that is not available in your palette, you must first modify your palette to
include that color.
When cycling through colors in a cycle using a keyboard shortcut, and the last color in the cycle is
reached, repeating the keystroke applies the first color in the cycle. While color cycles are intended for
use with shortcut keystrokes, you can also access the colors in your color cycles under the Macabacus >
Format > Color menu.
Font Colors
Blue-Black Toggle
Alternate the font color of selected cells between blue and your default font color (typically black) using
the Blue-Black Toggle. Blue and black are the font colors used most often in financial modeling, where
blue is used to denote inputs and black is used for formulas that reference only cells within the same
worksheet. The blue color used by the Blue-Black Toggle cannot be customized.
Ctrl
Default
shortcut
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Default
shortcut
Recolor Colors
Recolor colors are font colors that Macabacus will recolor to the default font color when exporting cells
to PowerPoint/Word and generating PDFs. Normally, these colors will be similar or identical to your
AutoColor colors. You can customize your Recolor colors in the Application Settings dialog.
No AutoColor Colors
In some cases, you may not want an AutoColor operation (discussed below) to override existing font
colors that have special meaning. For example, if you colored a numeric input red as a reminder to
update it later, you would not want AutoColor to change the numbers font color to blue. To avoid
unintended AutoColoring, add red to the list of No AutoColor colors in the Application Settings dialog.
When you later perform an AutoColor operation, cells with red fonts will not be modified. When
customizing your No AutoColor colors, note that just one or two colors may be sufficient.
AutoColor
In financial and other types of modeling, font colors are commonly used to visually characterize cell
values and formulas. For example, numeric inputs are typically colored blue. Macabacus lets you create
an AutoColor scheme that defines which font colors to use for cells containing numeric inputs, partial
inputs, formulas that reference cells on the same worksheet, formulas that reference cells in other
worksheets and workbooks, hyperlinks, and formulas that contain external data functions (e.g., FactSet or
CapIQ pulls). The default AutoColor scheme installed with Macabacus reflects the finance industry
standard, but you can modify these colors as desired. In practice, your AutoColor colors may be the same
as or similar to those in your Font Color Cycle.
Page 30
AutoColor Selection
Apply the AutoColor scheme to all cells in the selected range.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
AutoColor Sheet
Apply the AutoColor scheme to the active worksheet.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
AutoColor Workbook
Apply the AutoColor scheme to the entire active workbook.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
AutoColor on Entry
With this feature enabled, Macabacus will automatically color cell fonts according to your AutoColor
scheme as you enter cell values and formulas.
Performance Considerations
AutoColor on Entry may slow down some operations involving large numbers of cells, and may
adversely impact Undo/Redo behavior. For this reason, AutoColor on Entry is disabled by default.
AutoColor Cycle
The AutoColor Cycle is comprised of the customizable font colors in your AutoColor scheme. Key the
AutoColor Cycle shortcut to apply the next font color in the cycle to all selected cells.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Fill Colors
Fill Color Cycle
The Fill Color Cycle consists of several customizable cell fill colors that are most frequently used in your
modeling. Key the Fill Color Cycle shortcut to apply the next fill color in the cycle to all selected cells.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Page 31
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Border Colors
Border Color Cycle
The Border Color Cycle consists of several customizable border colors that you most frequently use in
your modeling. Key the Border Color Cycle shortcut to apply the next border color in the cycle to all
selected cells. Note that Border Color Cycle only changes the color of existing borders and will not add
new borders to selected cells.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Chart Colors
Chart Color Cycle
The Chart Color Cycle consists of several customizable chart colors that you most frequently use in
charting. Key the Chart Color Cycle shortcut to apply the next chart color in the cycle to the selected chart
element.
Chart properties that can be colored using this tool include series fill color, series line color, data point fill
color, chart area fill color, plot area fill color, gridlines color, and legend fill color. We recommend adding
only your most frequently used chart colors (including perhaps a gridline color) to the Chart Color Cycle to
limit cycle time.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Page 32
International Currencies
A single dollar sign ($) in a number format instructs Excel to apply the currency symbol (e.g., ,
) set in Windows. To ensure that currencies are formatted in USD, regardless of your Windows
currency symbol setting, replace all occurrences of $ with [$$] in your currency number formats.
General Cycle
Example: 1,000; 1,000.0; 1000
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Percent Cycle
Example: 49.9%; 150bps; L+350
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Default
shortcut
Multiple Cycle
Example: 8.9x; 1.25x
Ctrl
Shift
Date Cycle
Example: 9/30/2016; 2016-09-30; Sep 30, 2016
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
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Binary Cycle
Example: Yes/No; Y/N; On/Off; True/False
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Default
shortcut
Ratio Cycle
Example: 1.23:1; 6/10
Alt
Shift
Decimal Adjustment
Thousands and Decimal Separators
For optimal Increase/Decrease Decimals performance, ensure that your thousands and decimal
separator (e.g., , and .) settings in Excel match your system separator settings.
Increase Decimals
Increase the number of decimal places shown for numeric values in selected cells. Repeat to continue
increasing the number of decimal places shown.
Ctrl
Default
shortcut
Decrease Decimals
Decrease the number of decimal places shown for numeric values in selected cells. Repeat to continue
decreasing the number of decimal places shown.
Ctrl
Default
shortcut
Shift
<
Default
shortcut
Shift
>
Default
shortcut
Page 34
3.1.4 Borders
Border Style Cycles
You can modify the style of individual cell borders, without affecting other cell formatting, using
convenient border style cycles. Repeat the keystrokes below to cycle a particular border through several
line styles selected in the Application Settings dialog on the Miscellaneous tab. Although you can add as
many line styles to the border style cycle as you like, we recommend including no more than four such
styles, with None as the last style in the cycle. The same styles apply to the Border Top, Border Bottom,
Border Left, Border Right, and Border Outline cycles.
The border color applied when using the following border style cycles is the default border color, which is
black by default, and can be customized in the Application Settings dialog on the Colors tab.
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Page 35
Ctrl
Shift
&
Default
shortcut
No Border
Remove all borders from selected cells. This is a native Excel shortcut and is only mentioned here for
completeness.
Ctrl
Shift
3.1.5 Alignment
Alignment Cycles
Alignment cycles include commonly used formats for horizontally and vertically aligning content within
cells. Alignment cycles are normally triggered with a keyboard shortcut, and are also accessible from the
Macabacus > Format > Alignment menu.
Center Cycle
Cycle through horizontal centering styles.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Horizontal Cycle
Cycle through horizontal alignment styles.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Vertical Cycle
Cycle through vertical alignment styles.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Indentation
Left Indent Cycle
Increase the left indent of selected cells. Repeat the shortcut keystroke to increase the indent, up to the
maximum indent specified on the Miscellaneous tab of the Application Settings dialog. When the
maximum indent level is reached, the indent returns to zero upon the next shortcut keystroke.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
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3.1.6 Fonts
Font Style
Font Style Cycle
Cycle the font of selected cells through customizable styles (e.g., Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman) by
repeating the shortcut keystroke below. Font styles within the cycle can be edited on the Styles tab in the
Application Settings dialog, and are directly accessible from the Macabacus > Format > Font > Font Style
menu.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Font Size
Font Size Cycle
Cycle the font of selected cells through customizable sizes by repeating the shortcut keystroke below.
Font sizes within the cycle can be edited on the Styles tab in the Application Settings dialog, and are
directly accessible from the Macabacus > Format > Font > Font Size menu.
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Increase Font
Increase the font size of selected cells by one point. Continue increasing font size with successive
shortcut keystrokes. The native increase font size operation in Excel applies a single font size to all cells
in the selection, which can result in unexpected font size changes. Macabacus is smarter, incrementing
font size for each cell in the selection, regardless of initial font size.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Decrease Font
Decrease the font size of selected cells by one point. Continue decreasing font size with successive
shortcut keystrokes. The native decrease font size operation in Excel applies a single font size to all cells
in the selection, which can result in unexpected font size changes. Macabacus is smarter, decrementing
font size for each cell in the selection, regardless of initial font size.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Page 37
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Shift
Default
shortcut
Case Cycle
Cycle text in selected cells through sentence, title, upper, and lower case.
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
List Cycle
Cycle through ordered and unordered lists styles. Available list styles include discs, dashes, numbers,
uppercase/lowercase letters, and uppercase/lowercase Roman numerals.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Leader Dots
Add leader dots to text in selected cells. Repeat the shortcut keystroke to remove the leader dots.
Leader dots are sometimes used as a visual aid to help the reader align text labels at the left of a financial
statement with the first number to the right.
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Sum Bar
Insert sum bars into selected cells. Repeat the shortcut keystroke to remove sum bars. Sum bars use
the default border color (typically black), which can be customized. Sum bars help avoid inadvertently
adding rows above a cell with a SUM formula without including the added rows in the sum.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Wrap Text
Toggle on/off text wrap in selected cells.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Page 38
Macabacus lets you create your own styles that combine multiple cell formatting properties, similar to
native styles. Unlike native styles, however, Macabacus styles are always available in Excel, regardless of
the workbook you have open, and can be applied using keyboard shortcuts. Macabacus styles include all
of the important formatting possibilities of native Excel styles, and allow you to additionally specify:
Macabacus styles are added to one of eight Custom Style Cycles. For example, you might name one of
these cycles Header Cycle and populate it with frequently used table header formats. Your Custom
Style Cycles appear on the Macabacus > Format menu, and can be triggered using a keyboard shortcut.
Custom Style Cycles can be managed on the Styles tab of the Application Settings dialog, accessed from
the Macabacus > Settings menu. Here, you can create new styles from scratch, capture the formatting of
the selected cell in a new style, or create a new style using an existing Macabacus style or native Excel
style as a starting point. You can also edit existing styles, reorder styles within cycles, add or remove
styles from cycles.
When ordering the custom styles in a cycle, consideration should be given to each styles expected
frequency of use and the number of formatting properties that each style modifies. In general, styles that
are used more frequently should appear early in the cycle and styles used less frequently should appear
later in the cycle to reduce the number of shortcut keystrokes required to apply styles, on average. In
addition, you should generally arrange styles that modify fewer cell formatting properties early in the
cycle and those that modify more formatting properties later in the cycle.
Alt
1-8
Default
shortcut
3.1.9 Paintbrush
Paintbrush lets you copy and apply cell formatting, without using the Windows clipboard, and is a
lightweight, flexible alternative to Macabacus Styles, which are more purpose-specific (e.g., number
formats, borders) and require configuration. The clipboard is overwritten every time you perform a native
Windows copy/cut operation, so it is not suited for copying styles that you expect to use routinely, but
perhaps not immediately. Paintbrush lets you copy and store formatting styles for longer periods, and is
unaffected by native Windows copy/cut operations, so the styles you need are always a shortcut
keystroke away.
You can edit the maximum number of styles recorded with Paintbrush on the Miscellaneous tab of the
Application Settings dialog. Once the limit is reached, new captured styles will push out older styles (first
in, first outFIFO).
Capture Paintbrush
Capture the style of selected cells for later application.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Page 39
Apply Paintbrush
Cycle through captured paintbrush styles to apply them to selected cells.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Clear Paintbrushes
Remove all existing paintbrushes and start over with a new canvas.
3.1.10 Footnotes
Toggle Footnotes
Use the Toggle Footnotes shortcut (or menu button) to quickly superscript numbers at the end of cell text,
making them appear as footnotes. Repeat the operation to remove superscripting.
Macabacus recognizes footnotes with or without a single space between the last letter in the cell text and
the trailing number (e.g., Other items 2, Other expense 4), footnotes encapsulated in square brackets
and parenthesis (e.g., (2), [3]) at the end of cell text, and multiple footnotes (e.g., (2)(3), 2,3).
When applying superscript formatting natively, Excel may automatically adjust row heights, which can be
annoying. Macabacus keeps row height constant when using the Toggle Footnotes tool.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Hide Footnotes
This tool hides footnotes at the end of cell text by changing the font color of the superscripted text to
match the fill color of the cell containing the text. The footnote is not actually removed, just hidden. For
example, suppose you have added footnotes to your model, but the explanatory text to which the
footnotes refer appears on your PowerPoint slide, rather than in your model. If you want to print out your
model for review without pasting it into PowerPoint, you can hide the footnotes which do not refer to
explanatory text. Access this tool from the Macabacus > Format > Footnotes menu.
Show Footnotes
Show footnotes after hiding them by changing the font color of superscripted text to the font color of the
first character in the containing cell. Access this tool from the Macabacus > Format > Footnotes menu.
Footnote Checker
Footnote Checker verifies that footnotes appear in sequential order, such that no numbers are skipped,
and also checks the relative positioning of footnotes to ensure that lower numbered footnotes (e.g., 1, 2)
appear in top left cells and larger numbered footnotes (e.g., 8, 9) appear in bottom right cells.
You can perform this check on the currently selected range or on all print areas in the active workbook.
When you perform this check on all print areas, each print area is inspected individually, so that footnotes
in one print area are not compared to footnotes in another print area. You can also specify whether
footnotes should be ordered from left to right, then top to bottom, or vice versa.
Note that Macabacus cannot check footnotes in textboxes overlaid on the spreadsheet as they are not
part of cell text. Access this tool from the Macabacus > Format > Footnotes menu.
Page 40
Cell Size
Row Height Cycle
Cycle through customizable row heights. Repeat the keystroke to apply the next row height in the cycle.
Alt
Shift
PgUp
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
PgUp
Default
shortcut
AutoFit Height
Adjust row height to fit cell contents.
Alt
Shift
PgDn
Default
shortcut
AutoFit Width
Adjust column width to fit cell contents.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
PgDn
Default
shortcut
Page 41
Guide Shapes
Guides are rectangle shapes overlaid on your worksheet that provide visual cues for adjusting the sizes of
cells manually. To insert a guide, select a size from the Macabacus > Guides menu. Available sizes
include customizable Standard Sizes, a selected shape in PowerPoint or Word, or selected cells or charts
in Excel.
Alt
Default
shortcut
Alt
Default
shortcut
Shift
Insert
Default
shortcut
Insert Column
Insert a new column. If multiple columns are initially selected, the number of columns inserted will equal
the number of columns initially selected.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Insert
Default
shortcut
Delete Row
Delete the selected rows. Entire rows do not need to be initially selected.
Alt
Shift
Delete
Default
shortcut
Page 42
Delete Column
Delete the selected columns. Entire columns do not need to be initially selected.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Delete
Default
shortcut
Default
shortcut
Shift
Group Column
Group selected columns. Entire columns do not need to be initially selected.
Alt
Default
shortcut
Shift
Ungroup Row
Ungroup any grouped rows in the selected range. Entire rows do not need to be initially selected.
Alt
Default
shortcut
Shift
Ungroup Column
Ungroup any grouped columns in the selected range. Entire columns do not need to be initially selected.
Alt
Default
shortcut
Shift
Hide Row
Group and collapse selected rows. Entire rows do not need to be initially selected.
Alt
Shift
Home
Default
shortcut
Hide Column
Group and collapse selected columns. Entire columns do not need to be initially selected.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Home
Default
shortcut
Unhide Row
Expand grouped rows in the selected range. Entire rows do not need to be initially selected.
Alt
Shift
End
Default
shortcut
Page 43
Unhide Column
Expand grouped columns in the selected range. Entire columns do not need to be initially selected.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
End
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Shift
n
d
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Proper Hide
Replace hidden rows/columns (i.e., those with height/width equal to zero) with grouped and collapsed
rows/columns in the active worksheet. Grouping and collapsing rows/columns is a better practice than
simply hiding them.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Reverse Columns/Rows
Reverse Columns
Reverse Columns reverses the order of selected columns, using the first row of dates found in the
selection as the basis for reordering. This is especially useful for reordering periods in financial
statements from oldest to newest or vice versa. For example, financial statements downloaded from the
Internet often have the most recent periods on the left, and the oldest on the right. In financial modeling,
however, we typically prefer later periods on the right to support projections. Macabacus lets you reverse
the order of entire columns, or the order of columns in a smaller selection of cells, only.
Native Excel functionality supports reordering columns similarly, but if any cell formulas refer to the
reordered data, those references will be incorrect after reordering. Macabacus, on the other hand,
preserves formula references to reordered cells so that columns can be safely reversed, without breaking
formulas. This tool is accessed via the Macabacus > Cells > Reverse Columns button.
Page 44
Reverse Rows
Reverse Rows reverses the order of selected rows, similar to Reverse Columns. This tool is accessed via
the Macabacus > Cells > Reverse Rows button.
Batch Modification
Modify Rows
Perform formatting, insertion, and deletion operations on multiple rows at once. For example, you can
insert 2 rows every other row for the next 50 rows, apply a certain style to the last of every 3 rows for the
next 100 rows, or change the row height of every other row to 5. The Modify Rows tool is most useful
when you would otherwise need to manually perform operations on a very large number of rows.
Modify Columns
Modify Columns works the same as Modify Rows, except that it works on columns.
3.2.2 Sheets
Navigate Sheets
First Sheet
Go to the first sheet in the active workbook. This can be very useful when navigating workbooks with a
large number of sheets. You can also access this tool with the Macabacus > Cells > Navigate > First
Sheet button.
Ctrl
Alt
Home
Default
shortcut
Last Sheet
Go to the last sheet in the active workbook. This can be very useful when navigating workbooks with a
large number of sheets. You can also access this tool with the Macabacus > Cells > Navigate > Last
Sheet button.
Ctrl
Alt
End
Default
shortcut
Next Sheet
Loop forward through sheets in the active workbook. Repeat the keystroke to continue looping. When
keyed on the last sheet in the workbook, this shortcut will navigate to the first sheet. You can also access
this tool with the Macabacus > Cells > Navigate > Next Sheet button. We recommend using this shortcut
instead of Excel's native Ctrl + Page Down shortcut for navigating between sheets.
Ctrl
Alt
PgDn
Default
shortcut
Previous Sheet
Loop backward through sheets in the active workbook. Repeat the keystroke to continue looping. When
keyed on the first sheet in the workbook, this shortcut will navigate to the last sheet. You can also access
this tool with the Macabacus > Cells > Navigate > Previous Sheet button. We recommend using this
shortcut instead of Excels native Ctrl + Page Up shortcut for navigating between sheets.
Page 45
Ctrl
Alt
PgUp
Default
shortcut
Move Sheets
Move Sheets Left
Move selected sheets to the left in the sheet order. This tool can move multiple sheets at a time,
including worksheets, chart sheets, or a combination of both. If the left-most selected sheet is the first
sheet in the workbook, keying this shortcut will move the selected sheet(s) to the end of the workbook.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Buried Sheets
Buried sheets are hidden worksheets and chart sheets that can only be unhidden programmaticallyvia
VBA code or an add-in like Macabacus. Burying a sheet can be useful for hiding information from users
of your workbook, but should not be used to protect sensitive information.
Unhide Sheets
Macabacus replaces Excels native Unhide dialog used to unhide hidden sheets with an enhanced version
that allows you to (a) unhide multiple sheets at once, (b) unhide buried (i.e., xlSheetVeryHidden) sheets,
and (c) resize the dialog to show more sheets or better view sheets with long names. Access this dialog
from any native button normally used to unhide sheets, or from the Macabacus > Cells menu.
Page 46
Shift
Default
shortcut
Shift
Default
shortcut
Shift
Default
shortcut
Comment Formula
This tool prepends an apostrophe to formulas in selected cells to make formulas appear as text. Repeat
the Comment Formula shortcut keystroke or click its ribbon button again to remove the apostrophes and
restore the original formulas.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Clean Cells
This tool trims extraneous spaces from cell formulas and valuesdouble spaces, leading/trailing spaces,
spaces between operators, etc. Extra spaces sometimes appear in imported data, preventing you from
sorting or otherwise processing data. They can also result in unsightly data/text misalignment that
requires correction before publishing. Macabacus cannot remove some extraneous spaces in formulas
referencing other workbooks and worksheets.
Page 47
Additionally, this tool removes worksheet names from formulas where not required. For example,
Macabacus will change a formula on Sheet1 that reads =Sheet1!B3 to =B3, since the self-referenced
sheet name in the formula is unnecessary.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Unapply Names
Replace defined names in a formula with their corresponding cell references.
Anchor Formula
Anchor each cell reference in selected cells formulas to the referenced range. Repeat the operation to
change the anchor point. For example, =A1, =$A$1, =A$1, =$A1.
Ctrl
F2
Default
shortcut
Flatten Selection
Convert formulas in the selected range to values and color fonts according to AutoColor settings.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Flip Sign
Invert the sign of numeric inputs and multiply formulas by -1 in the selected range. This is useful when
changing the sign convention of expenses in an income statement, for example.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Default
shortcut
Paste Duplicate
Paste copied cells preserving original formulas, except to maintain formulaic relativity within the pasted
region. This can sometimes be a more intuitive alternative to Paste Exact.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Alt
Default
shortcut
Page 48
Paste Links
Paste links to copied cells. This is similar to Excels native Paste Link, except that Macabacus (a)
provides a convenient keyboard shortcut, (b) does not paste links to empty cells, (c) more reliably applies
number formats from the copied range, and (d) applies AutoColor font colors to the pasted range if
AutoColor on Entry is enabled.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Paste Transpose
Transpose paste copied cells as links, number formats, or exact formulas.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Paste Insert
Insert copied or cut cells at the current selection. If you have copied/cut an entire row/column,
Macabacus automatically inserts as many rows/columns as are required to accommodate the pasted
rows/columns. If you have not copied/cut an entire row/column, Macabacus will prompt you for whether
you want to insert rows or columns to accommodate the cells to be pasted.
For example, suppose you cut two entire rows and move the cursor up several rows to your intended
insertion point. Upon the Paste Insert operation, Macabacus will insert two rows above the insertion
point, paste the cut rows, and delete the original cut rows. Using native Excel functionality, you would
have to manually insert the two rows above the intended insertion point before pasting, which involves
twice as many keystrokes.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Default
shortcut
Alt
Alt
Default
shortcut
Page 49
Simplify Formula
Replace multiple Excel functions in selected formulas at once with the cell references or values to which
those functions evaluate. You can specify which functions Simplify Formula replaces in the Formulas >
Evaluate Functions > Options menu.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Evaluate TRANSPOSE()
Replace a TRANSPOSE formula array with direct links to source cells.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Evaluate INDIRECT()/INDEX(MATCH())
Replace these Excel functions in formulas with the cell references to which they evaluate.
Evaluate CHOOSE()/OFFSET()/HLOOKUP()/VLOOKUP()/IF()/MIN()/MAX()
Replace these Excel functions in formulas with the cell references or values to which they evaluate.
Alt
Shift
<
Default
shortcut
Go to Max
Go to the cell with the maximum value in the selected range, or if only one cell is selected, in the
contiguous range. This is a quick way to find a 52-week high in raw stock price data, for example. You
can also access this tool with the Macabacus > Formulas > Go To Max button.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
>
Default
shortcut
Page 50
Same Worksheet
When replicating modules on the same
worksheet as the original module, Macabacus
inserts newly created modules directly below the
original module, inserting rows as necessary.
You can specify how many rows of separation
are desired between each new module in the
Replicate Module dialog.
Separate Worksheets
When replicating modules on separate
worksheets, Macabacus will add a new
worksheet for each replicated module, using the
base name you specify to name new
worksheets. For example, if your chosen base
name is Balance Sheet, then new worksheets
will be named Balance Sheet 1, Balance Sheet 2, etc.
Sum Copies
You can choose to sum each new module created into the original module. Note that Macabacus will
intelligently decide which items to sum, adding up numeric inputs but ignoring dates and text.
Page 51
First, select the data for which you want to compute statistics, as shown above. The first column in your
selection is the column in which the statistic labels (e.g., Min, Average) will go. Next, click the
Macabacus > Formulas > Summary Statistics button to insert the summary statistics. Macabacus will
insert enough rows to
accommodate the summary
statistics to ensure that no
cells below the data are
overwritten.
Macabacus will intelligently
conform number formatting of
the resulting statistics to the
number formatting of your
selected data. If number
formats in only the first row of
your data include percent
signs, multiple indicators (x),
etc., Macabacus will apply
these formats to only the first
row of the statistics, as shown
above. If each row of your
data uses the same number
formats, then Macabacus will
apply those formats to each
row of the statistics.
Summary Statistics is
customizable. You can select
which statistics to compute
and change the labels for each
statistic on the Model tab of
the Application Settings
dialog. For example, you could
Page 52
change the AVERAGE functions label from Average to Mean. You can also choose to ignore
currencies when computing statistics, since statistical analysis on certain currency data (e.g., market
capitalization, stock price) for a set of companies may be meaningless.
Page 53
Administrator Privileges
To publish to the company model library or make changes to that library in Library Manager, either (a)
activate Macabacus using the email address of a Macabacus account administrator, or (b) run Excel
as a Windows administrator. This prevents unauthorized changes by end users.
Adding Models
Models can be published to the personal, team, or company library by clicking the Macabacus > Settings
> Libraries > Publish Model button in Excel, PowerPoint, or Word. You will be prompted to select a
workbook to publish, and to specify a document group to which the model should be published. If the
path to the library to which you are publishing is not set, Macabacus will prompt you to choose a library
folder.
Page 54
Shared Models
Models in the team and company libraries should reside in server locations available to Macabacus
users with read access.
Deleting Models
The Library Manager dialog (shown above) can be used to view and manage all models in the libraries,
and is accessed from the Macabacus > Settings > Libraries menu in Excel. Select the models you wish to
remove and click the Delete button.
Page 55
3.5 Auditing
3.5.1 Precedents / Dependents
Navigate
You have probably used Excels
native Trace Precedents/
Dependents tools and
discovered the limitations of
their utility. Macabacus Pro
Precedents and Pro
Dependentsthe most
advanced auditing tools of
their kindmake tracing
precedents/dependents very
simple and are absolutely
essential for any power user.
Pro Precedents
Pro Precedents allows you to
effortlessly navigate an audited
formulas inputs. When you
activate Pro Precedents, a
dialog opens displaying the
addresses and values of all
cells used in the calculation of the audited cell. Selecting a precedent cell range in the dialog using the
up/down arrow keys or the mouse navigates to the precedent range, whether it is outside of the visible
range on the same worksheet, on another worksheet, or even in another workbook.
With the Evaluate Functions & Groups option enabled, Pro Precedents evaluates Excel functions (e.g.,
SUM) and expressions grouped by parentheses within formulas individually, letting you analyze complex
formulas piece-by-piece. In other words, you can see what a portion of your formula is contributing to the
overall result. If Macabacus is able to evaluate certain Excel functions as cell references, selecting the
function in the Pro Precedents dialog will navigate to that cell range. If you are wondering what cell that
HLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, OFFSET, CHOOSE, INDIRECT, or INDEX(MATCH) function is actually pulling from,
Pro Precedents can show you. The Evaluate Functions & Groups option is disabled by default to avoid
confusion for those who do not understand it; enabling this option is highly recommended.
You can also drill down on precedents using intuitive, tree-based navigation. If a precedent cell or
evaluated function/group has precedents, it will be marked with a symbol. Press the right arrow key to
expand the tree and trace precedents one level deeper. Use the left arrow key to move back up one level
in the precedents tree. You can open the Pro Precedents dialog, navigate multiple levels of precedent
cells, and close the dialog without ever using your mouse.
Pro Precedents has several keyboard shortcuts for repositioning and resizing the dialog. Key Ctrl+Up,
Ctrl+Down, Ctrl+Right, and Ctrl+Left to move the dialog. Key Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End to position the
dialog at the top left and bottom right corners of the screen, respectively. Key Shift+Up, Shift+Down,
Shift+Right, and Shift+Left to resize the dialog.
Pro Precedents cannot process 3D formulas, which are relatively uncommon. If Pro Precedents does not
seem to be working as expected, the problem is likely too many unused range names in your workbook.
Try running Macabacus Name Scrubber tool, then try again.
Page 56
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Pro Dependents
The Pro Dependents dialog navigates an audited cell's dependencies similar to how Pro Precedents
navigates precedents. Other features include:
Ctrl
Edit formulas live Edit a dependent cells formula directly in the formula box by either clicking
into the formula box or keying F2. When you are done editing the formula, key Enter to apply the
new formula, or Esc to cancel editing. If the new formula no longer references the audited cell, the
dependent node is removed from the tree.
Check for chart dependencies Pro Dependents lists as a dependency any chart whose series
reference the audited cell. Note that data label references to the audited cell cannot be shown as
dependencies.
Check for name dependencies Pro Dependents list as a dependency a range name that refers to
the audited cell.
Shift
Default
shortcut
Shift
Default
shortcut
Troubleshooting
Pro Precedents/Dependents will not trace my formula
1. Is the audited formula a 3D formula referring to the same range on multiple worksheets (e.g.,
=SUM(Sheet1:Sheet3!C5))? Macabacus cannot process 3D formulas at this time.
2. Does the audited formula contain unqualified structured table references (e.g., =SUM([Sales]))?
Macabacus can only process fully qualified structured table references (e.g., =SUM(DeptSales[Sales])
in formulas at this time. Fully qualified structured table references must also reference tables within
the same workbook.
3. Most often, Macabacus is unable to parse the audited formula because your workbook contains
hundreds or thousands of unused range names that you don't use or even know about. Go to the
Macabacus > File > Optimize menu and open Name Scrubber. Remove any unused names by clicking
the Clean Names button and performing a Deep Clean, or remove names manually from the list. If
you are satisfied that hidden names are not in use, delete them, too. Note that some add-ins,
including Macabacus, use hidden names for legitimate purposes (e.g., linking), so be careful when
deleting them.
4. If you are still experiencing difficulty, email support@macabacus.com with the information requested
here. You should also include a copy/paste of the audited formula or, if at all possible, attached the
affected workbook.
Page 57
Use the Ctrl+Home or Ctrl+End shortcuts immediately after executing Pro Precedents/Dependents to
bring the hidden dialog back into view.
Alt
Default
shortcut
Alt
Default
shortcut
Clear Arrows
Clear trace arrows from the active worksheet.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Page 58
AutoTrace
AutoTrace Precedents
You can automatically show precedent trace arrows for the active cell as you navigate among cells by
enabling AutoTrace Precedents. AutoTrace Precedents can be toggled on and off using the shortcut
below, or with a checkbox on the Macabacus > Trace menu.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
AutoTrace Dependents
You can automatically show dependent trace arrows for the active cell as you navigate among cells by
enabling AutoTrace Dependents. AutoTrace Dependents can be toggled on and off using the shortcut
below, or with a checkbox on the Macabacus > Trace menu.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Default
shortcut
In the example below, we perform the Uniformulas operation on the cell computing gross margin in the
first period. This selects adjacent cells in the same contiguous range with the same formulaic structure,
as shown. The cell computing EBIT margin in the third period is not selected, however, because its
formulaic structure differs from that of adjacent cells. This could (and in this case, does) indicate a
formula error.
The Uniformulas tool is best accessed via shortcut keystroke, but can also be accessed via the
Macabacus > Visualize > Uniformulas button. You can set the Uniformulas tool to enter Edit Mode on the
audited cell (as shown above)similar to keying F2from the Application Settings dialog. When this
feature is set, the Uniformulas tool behaves like an enhanced version of the familiar F2 > Escape auditing
sequence.
Page 59
Formula Flow
Formula Flow helps you visualize the formula structure of your spreadsheets to quickly identify errors and
other inconsistencies. Formula Flow uses the following rules to apply the turquoise patterns shown in the
example below:
Uninterrupted horizontal line patterns in a contiguous range of cells indicate that formulas are
consistent across columns.
Uninterrupted vertical line patterns in a contiguous range of cells indicate that formulas are
consistent down rows.
Uninterrupted horizontal and vertical line (i.e., crosshatched) patterns in a contiguous range of cells
indicate that formulas are consistent both horizontally and vertically.
Darker turquoise shading indicates a formulaic inconsistency within the inspected range (you can
sometimes see Excel's green inconsistent formula indicators in the corner of these cells, too).
As you change the contents of cells visualized using Formula Flow, the visualization updates
automatically. Access this tool from the Macabacus > Visualize menu. Remove this visualization by
performing an Undo operation, or click the Macabacus > Visualize > Clear Visualizations button.
Dependency Density
Dependency Density allows you to visualize link density as measured by the relative number of
dependents for each cell in the selection. In financial modeling, horizontally adjacent cells often have the
same number of dependents. Thus, you would expect the Dependency Density visualizer to generally
produce the same orange shading intensity within a row of cells.
Access this tool from the Macabacus > Visualize menu. Remove this visualization by performing an Undo
operation, or click the Macabacus > Visualize > Clear Visualizations button.
Page 60
Magnitude Map
Magnitude Map is an improvement on Excels native conditional formatting color scale that utilizes more
intuitive coloring when working with data containing both positive and negative numbers. This tool is
great for identifying outliers, as cells with the largest magnitudes (positive or negative) are shaded darker.
Access this tool from the Macabacus > Visualize menu. Remove this visualization by performing an Undo
operation, or click the Macabacus > Visualize > Clear Visualizations button.
Beta Notice
Discussions are a beta feature that is currently available for Excel 2013 and 2016, only. This feature
may be extensively modified or removed altogether in subsequent releases.
There are many ways to incorporate discussions into your modeling workflows; below is an example:
Example Usage
A Summer Analystan internis tasked with a comparable acquisitions analysis by his Associate.
Because the Summer Analyst is inexperienced, the Associate insists that the intern source every data
point and explain every assumption. As the Summer Analyst builds the analysis, he sources each data
point using Macabacus Discuss pane by either adding a source file, a link to the source web page, or a
screen shot of the applicable information. Where he must use his judgement, he explains his rationale
behind an assumption by adding a text message in the Discuss pane.
Page 61
When the analysis is complete, the Associate opens the model for review and also opens the Discuss
pane. The Associate can clearly see all of the source materials used in the analysis, as well as
explanations behind the assumptions made by the intern. As the Associate reviews the model, she has
comments and questions on the inputs in certain cells, such as I think this value is too high, lets use
12% and where does this number come from? She records these thoughts in Macabacus Discuss
pane, which links her comments to the cells to which they refer, and sends the workbook back to the
Summer Analyst for follow-up.
Add/View Files
You can add files to a discussionperhaps to source your databy dragging files into the Discuss pane
or clicking the appropriate button to add them using a file picker dialog. If you intend for other to access
these files, be sure they reside on a shared network drive, rather than your computer. Alternatively, you
can check the Embed files box to embed files directly into your workbook, so that they always accompany
the workbook. Note that embedding files increases the file size of your workbook.
To view a file in a discussion, right-click a file and select Open File from the context menu.
Add/View Links
To add a link to a web page, copy the pages address from your browsers address bar to the clipboard
and click the Paste web address button in the Discuss pane. After a brief delay, and if connected to the
Internet, Macabacus will normally display the web pages title and icon that shows in your browsers tab.
To view a web page in a discussion, right-click the link and select Follow Link from the context menu.
Page 62
Deleting Discussions
When you delete a discussion, Macabacus will remove any embedded files and screen shots associated
with that discussion from the workbook.
Unread Messages
When another user adds a message to a discussion, it appears in bold font at the top of the Discuss pane
until you read the discussion, at which point the bold formatting is removed. This is similar to how
Outlook and Gmail display read/unread messages.
Page 63
3.6 Charting
3.6.1 Quick Charts
Creating many of the charts commonly used by finance and consulting professionals with native Excel
functionality alone can be complex and tedious. Macabacus automates much of this complexity,
reducing it to just a few mouse clicks with Quick Charts. All Quick Charts are 100% nativeno proprietary
objects are used to create them that would render them unusable by anyone who does not have
Macabacus installed.
When you create a new Quick Chart, a preferences dialog presents you with several orientation, sizing,
formatting, and labeling options depending on the type of chart you are creating. Each Quick Chart dialog
has an Example button that will populate a new Quick Chart with sample data to help you quickly
understand the required chart data structure. Macabacus remembers your Quick Chart dialog
preferences, and loads them the next time you create a similar chart. For most Quick Charts, Macabacus
also builds some options directly into the worksheet containing the chart. These in-worksheet options let
you customize the appearance of the chart even after it is created, and whether or not you have
Macabacus installed.
Because Macabacus adds calculations and in-worksheet chart options to the workbook when building
most Quick Charts, most Quick Charts are created on new worksheets so that these modifications do not
interfere with the structure of the worksheet containing the original chart data.
Waterfall Chart
Waterfall charts, also known as bridge charts, are often used to show adjustments driving changes in a
single metric (e.g., net income) from one period to another.
To insert a waterfall chart, click the Macabacus > Charts > Waterfall Chart button. Chart options let you
display labels in different positionslike centered on data points or above/below adjustments depending
on whether adjustments are positive or negative. You can customize the three colors used in waterfall
charts, and optionally show bridge lines connecting the tops/bottoms of columns shown in the chart to
facilitate visual interpretation of the chart.
$60
$14
$55
Adj. 6
End
$4
$50
$12
$45
$8
$40
($8)
$30
$30
($5)
$20
$10
$0
Start
Adj. 1
Adj. 2
Adj. 3
Middle
Adj. 4
Adj. 5
Page 64
$12.75
$12.00
$12.00
$10.00
$10.00
$8.50
$11.00
Offer $10.50
Median $8.88
$10.00
$8.00
$8.75
$9.00
Range 5
Range 6
$8.00
$7.00
$6.00
$6.00
$6.00
$4.00
Range 1
Range 2
Range 3
Range 4
Median $8.88
Range 1
$6.00
$10.00
Range 2
$8.00
Range 3
Range 4
Offer $10.50
$12.75
$7.00
$8.50
$6.00
Range 5
$10.00
$8.75
Range 6
$12.00
$9.00
$11.00
$4.00
$6.00
$8.00
$10.00
$12.00
$14.00
Page 65
(d) automatically apply your Macabacus chart series colors. To insert a stacked column chart, click the
Macabacus > Charts > Stacked Column Chart button.
$160
$140
$120
$128
19.5%
$135
$131
8.9%
13.7%
39.6%
$100
$80
$139
39.3%
38.9%
38.3%
$60
$40
$20
47.3%
51.9%
56.1%
42.2%
2015
2016
2017
2018
Butterfly Chart
Butterfly charts, also known as tornado charts, are often used to compare similar metrics for two
companies, business units, etc.
To insert a butterfly chart, click the Macabacus > Charts > Butterfly Chart button. You can orient the chart
with categories (e.g., sales, net income) on the left axis, or down the middle of the chart separating the
two series of data being compared. Several data label positioning options are also available.
When you orient the butterfly chart with category labels in the middle, Macabacus can handle chart data
in multiple units. For example, the first section (e.g., top half) of the chart might include income
statement figures in dollars, and a second section (e.g., bottom half) might include key summary metrics,
like margins and growth rates. To tell Macabacus where sections begin and end, leave the second and
third columns in the chart data blank. Macabacus will treat the label in the first column as a section title
and apply additional formatting to distinguish it from other category labels.
Company A
Company B
$205
Revenue
$174
$160
Gross Profit
$142
$148
EBITDA
$126
$113
EBIT
$111
$95
Net Income
$88
$47
Capex
$39
Page 66
Company A
Company B
Revenue
$205
$174
Gross Profit
$160
$142
EBITDA
$148
$126
EBIT
$113
$111
Net Income
$95
$88
Capex
$47
$39
Marimekko Chart
Marimekko charts, also known as Mekko charts, are two-dimensional stacked charts popular among
consultants. They combine the functionality of both stacked column and stacked bar charts, displaying
data in blocks that vary in both height and width. These charts are notoriously difficult to construct using
native Excel functionality, and a third party solution like Macabacus is usually required to generate them.
Several options let you customize the text that appears block data labels, how that text is formatted, and
omit labels for small blocks where label text would otherwise overflow the block bounds. Many of these
options are located on the worksheet containing the chart, so that they can be customized even after the
chart has been created.
Block % of Category
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0%
10%
Seg A
Seg B
Seg C
Seg D
Delta
$45
Delta
$33
Delta
$26
Charlie
$51
Charlie
$39
Charlie
$31
Bravo
$56
Bravo
$43
Bravo
$38
Alpha
$67
Alpha
$49
Alpha
$41
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Delta
Bravo
$22
Charlie
Bravo
Alpha
$30
90%
Alpha
100%
Category % of Total
Scatter Chart
Macabacus scatter chart is similar to those you create natively in Excel, except that Macabacus will (a)
apply the correct text to data labels, (b) intelligently scale the axes to better display the chart data, and (c)
optionally plot a trend line through the data and show the corresponding R-squared value.
Page 67
$13.50
BBB
$13.00
$12.50
R = 0.6846
FFF
EEE
$12.00
$11.50
$11.00
$10.50
DDD
AAA
CCC
$10.00
$9.50
$4.00
$6.00
$8.00
$10.00
$12.00
Memorize/Apply Size
Page 68
Macabacus can memorize a charts dimensions and quickly apply the dimensions to other charts.
Resize To
Conform the selected chart to the dimensions of a Standard Size, the dimensions of a shape selected in
PowerPoint or Word, or the selected range in Excel from the Macabacus > Charts > Resize To menu.
When you resize a chart to a selected range of cells, Macabacus prompts you for the range address,
showing the address of cells that were selected prior to selecting the chart as the default option. You can
optionally reposition the chart to the top left coordinates of the range, fitting the chart within the
specified range.
Stack Charts
Stack selected charts relative to the first selected chart, and resize them to the dimensions of the first
selected chart. This could come in handy when creating a dashboard, for example. Access this tool
using the Macabacus > Charts > Stack Charts button.
Page 69
Totals are already included in the chart data source range. In this scenario, Macabacus ensures that
the totals in the chart are formatted properly and replaces missing labels as needed.
Totals are computed in cells adjacent to the chart data source range, but are not yet included in the
chart data. In this case, Macabacus adds cells containing totals to the chart data source range.
Totals are not found in cells adjacent to the chart data source range. In this scenario, Macabacus
can compute totals for you and add them to the chart.
Growth Arrow
Many column-based charts include growth arrows above the columns showing a CAGR or other growth
rate. Often, these arrows are hastily and imprecisely drawn on top of charts as Office shapes, require
tedious formatting, and do not update when the underlying data changes.
Macabacus can add growth arrows to your stacked column charts as a new data series. To add a growth
arrow, select your stacked column chart and click the Macabacus > Charts > Growth Arrow button. The
resulting dialog presents you with several options for customizing the growth arrow, and your preferences
are saved for the next time you use this tool.
The Growth Arrow dialog computes a CAGR automatically based on the chart data. You can override this
computed CAGR by manually entering a growth rate, or by selecting a cell containing the growth rate you
want to appear in the arrows data label. You can adjust the formatting of the arrow and its data label in
this dialog, as well as adjust the position of the arrow to avoid overlap with other chart elements, for
example.
Macabacus lets you add the growth arrow as either a dynamic series linked to worksheet data, or a static
series that does not update when chart data changes. A dynamic series uses formulas to position the
arrow on the chart, just like any normal data-driven chart series. To create a dynamic arrow, Macabacus
adds a few rows to your worksheet (preferably adjacent to the existing chart data) containing formulas
that compute the growth arrow position. A static arrow, on the other hand, is hardcoded into the chart,
but can be updated by simply reopening and closing the Growth Arrow dialog. A static arrow may be
Page 70
appropriate for a quick-and-dirty CAGR arrow on a chart whose data you do not expect to change, or if
you want to avoid worksheet changes required by a dynamic arrow.
CAGR 14.1%
$150
$100
$50
$116
$90
$99
42.3%
43.3%
43.4%
57.7%
56.7%
56.6%
57.8%
2015
2016
2017
2018
$90
$99
42.3%
43.3%
43.4%
57.7%
56.7%
56.6%
57.8%
2015
2016
2017
2018
$78
42.2%
$200
$150
$100
$50
$78
$116
42.2%
$200
CAGR 14.1%
$150
$100
$50
$116
$90
$99
42.3%
43.3%
43.4%
57.7%
56.7%
56.6%
57.8%
2015
2016
2017
2018
$78
42.2%
Page 71
Alt
Default
shortcut
Page 72
Find almost anything in your workbooks, not just text or specific formats.
Quickly select all results at once to perform follow-on actions, such as formatting.
Search within a selection, selected sheets, the active workbook, or all open workbooks.
Display search results in a convenient task pane that is not intrusive or disruptive to your workflow.
Text
Formatting
Text contains
Text does not contain
Text begins with
Text does not begin with
Text ends with
Text does not end with
Text matches regular expression
Text length equal to
Text length not equal to
Font bold
Font not bold
Font italic
Font not italic
Font underline
Font not underline
Font size equal to
Font size not equal to
Font size less than
Font size between
Font size not between
Font name equal to
Page 73
Dates
Dates (any)
Date equal to
Date before
Date on or before
Date after
Date on or after
Date between
Date not between
Date is year
Date is month
Date is calendar quarter
Date is weekday
Date is weekend
Date is Monday
Date is Tuesday
Date is Wednesday
Date is Thursday
Date is Friday
Protected Sheets
Super Find requires that worksheets be unprotected in order to be included in search results.
Selecting Results
When Select Mode is set to Cell, Macabacus will navigate to the cell selected in the Super Find results
tree. With Select Mode set to Row or Column, Macabacus will navigate to and select the entire row or
column, as appropriate, containing the cell selected in the tree. Selecting entire rows or columns can be
useful when you want to perform certain operations on the searched data, such as deleting or collapsing
rows/columns.
Click the Select All button to select all cells returned in the search. This can be especially useful if you
want to perform bulk formatting operations on those cells, for example.
Page 74
3.8 Publishing
3.8.1 Quick Export
Quick Export allows you to export Excel ranges (cells) or charts to PowerPoint or Word using convenient
keyboard shortcuts described below, or corresponding buttons on the Macabacus tab in the Export group.
Import/Export Functionality
If you are not already familiar with import/export functionality, please review its detailed description.
Default Options
Export Cells As
Set Macabacus to export ranges as pictures (recommended), tables, or embedded workbooks by default.
Export Chart As
Set Macabacus to export charts as pictures (recommended), charts, or embedded workbooks by default.
Note that charts cannot be exported as embedded workbooks if the default target application is set to
Word.
Target Application
You can specify the default target application (PowerPoint or Word) so that if both PowerPoint
presentations and Word documents are open when exporting from Excel, Macabacus knows to which
application it should export cells and charts.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Match Width
Paste the selected Excel range or chart into the default target application, matching the width of any
destination shape and scaling height to maintain a constant aspect ratio. If no destination shape is
selected, the pasted object will be inserted at its original size.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Match Height
Paste the selected Excel range or chart into the default target application, matching the height of any
destination shape and scaling width to maintain a constant aspect ratio. If no destination shape is
selected, the pasted object will be inserted at its original size.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Page 75
Match Size
Paste the selected Excel range or chart into the default target application, matching both the width and
height of any destination shape. If no destination shape is selected, the pasted object will be inserted at
its original size. This is generally not a good option when exporting cells and charts as pictures, because
of the potential for image distortion.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Match None
Paste the selected Excel range or chart into the default target application, without matching dimensions
of any destination shape, and instead inserting the pasted object at its original size.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Page 76
Remove charts
Removes all charts from the workbook.
Remove watches/bookmarks
Removes all watches from the workbook.
Hide gridlines
Hides gridlines on each worksheet in the workbook.
Zoom to 100%
Zoom all worksheets in the workbook to 100%.
Clean cells
Extra spaces sometimes appear in imported data and can prevent you from sorting or otherwise
processing data. They can also result in unsightly data/text misalignment that requires correction before
publishing. This tool trims leading, trailing, and excess (e.g., double) spaces from cells. Note that only
cells containing values, not formulas, will be trimmed.
Page 77
Additionally, this tool removes worksheet names from formulas where not required. For example, a
formula on Sheet1 that reads =Sheet1!B3 will be changed to =B3, since the self-referenced sheet name in
the formula is unnecessary.
Macabacus does not include anything outside of your print areas, since you presumably set print
areas to include exactly what you want to print/publish;
Macabacus can optionally recolor fonts to your default font color (typically black) for more
professional outputs;
Macabacus can optionally scan for formula errors before generating the PDF to avoid
embarrassing mistakes.
PDF options can be set in the Application Settings and Common Settings dialogs.
PDF to Email
PDF print areas from selected sheets and attach the PDF to a new Outlook email. You can optionally
choose to save a copy of the PDF to a folder (see below).
PDF to Folder
PDF print areas from selected sheets and save the PDF to the active workbooks folder, Desktop,
Documents, or another folder you specify when prompted. You can optionally view the PDF in Windows
Explorer after it has been generated.
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Alt
Default
shortcut
Zoom Out
Zoom out selected worksheets by specified interval. Repeat the keystroke to continue zooming out. The
zoom interval can be set to 5%, 10%, 15%, or 20% in the Application Settings dialog on the Interface tab.
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Toggle Gridlines
Toggle gridlines on/off for the selected worksheet(s).
Ctrl
Alt
Default
shortcut
Alt
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
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3.9.3 Workspace
Maximize View
Toggle the visibility of various workspace items (e.g., Formula Bar, Status Bar, ribbon, row/column
headers, task panes) in Excel's application window to maximize the spreadsheet viewing area. This is
especially useful when screen real estate is limited (e.g., laptops). Maximize View is similar to Excels
native Full Screen mode available in some versions of Excel, except that the latter is for presentation only,
not editingpressing the Escape key (necessary in the course of modeling) exits Excels native Full
Screen mode.
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
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Quick Save
Quick Save the active workbook.
Ctrl
Shift
Default
shortcut
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Quick Save As
Save as a new workbook using Quick Save functionality. Excels native shortcut keystroke for Save As is
F12, so Macabacus default Quick Save As shortcut, Alt+F12, should be easy to remember.
Alt
F12
Default
shortcut
Quick Save Up
Quickly save a workbook as a new version without recalculating, regardless of calculation settings. The
file name will be changed to reflect the incremented version number. For example, LBO_Model_v1.xlsx
will be saved as LBO_Model_v2.xlsx.
Shift
F12
Default
shortcut
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Macabacus Name Scrubber addresses many of the limitations associated with Excels native Name
Manager, and provides advanced functionality related to defined names, letting you:
Search for names containing specified text, with autosuggest functionality (useful when searching a
large collection of names);
Use filters to view the names you wantvisible, hidden, erroneous, linked, or unused;
Trace dependencies for names in your workbooks (a useful check before deleting names to avoid
#REF! errors);
Access Name Scrubber from the Macabacus > File > Optimize menu.
Style Scrubber
Workbooks can accumulate thousands of unused Excel styles over time, bloating file size and making
workbooks unstable. 65,000+ styles is the workbook limit, and it is surprisingly common to reach that
limit. Excel only lets you delete styles one-by-one, requiring hours, months, or years (if you are so
inclined) to manually delete all unused styles. Macabacus solves this problem, letting you delete many
Excel styles at once using the Style Scrubber dialog accessed from the Macabacus > File > Optimize
menu.
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Macabacus Styles
This tool removes native custom Excel styles, not native built-in styles or Macabacus styles. To
remove Macabacus styles, see the Styles tab in the Application Settings dialog.
There are free utilities that can also remove multiple styles at once, but they share two major deficiencies
with Excels native style removal capabilities: (a) they cannot delete corrupt styles, and (b) they delete all
custom styles, including those that are in use, which may require extensive reformatting.
The Style Scrubber dialog shows you which styles are used and which are not, so that you dont
unintentionally delete styles in use. If Macabacus cannot delete a style upon the first attempt, the style is
likely corrupt. Corrupt styles often have names that include foreign or non-standard characters.
Macabacus will prompt you to perform a Deep Clean to remove corrupt styles. Deep Clean creates a
copy of the active workbook and removes corrupt styles from the copied workbook.
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Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Delete Comment
Delete comments from selected cells. When multiple worksheets are selected, all comments on those
sheets will be deleted. This is much faster than the Excels native and labor-intensive Shift+F2 > Esc >
Delete sequence otherwise required for each individual cell containing a comment you want to delete.
Ctrl
Alt
Shift
Default
shortcut
Remove Author
Remove the authors name from all cell comments in the active workbook. This might be handy when you
want to send a workbook to a client but maintain anonymity for the workbook's creator, for example.
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3.12 Keyboard
3.12.1 Shortcuts
The Shortcut Manager dialog, accessible from the Macabacus > Settings > Keyboard menu, is used to
manage shortcut keystroke settings.
The shortcuts list can be sorted by action name, utility, or keystroke. The utility of a shortcut reflects its
expected frequency of use and its estimated time savings benefit. The higher the utility, the more
important the shortcut is to learn.
The Shortcut Manager resides in a pane at the edge of the Excel application window, making it easy to
learn Macabacus' shortcuts while you work.
Edit Shortcuts
You may want to customize your Macabacus
shortcut keystrokes to mimic another add-in
or deconflict hotkey assignments where
multiple add-ins have one or more shortcut
keystrokes in common. Shortcut assignments
for other add-ins cannot be editing using the
Shortcut Manager.
To edit a shortcut keystroke, select the
shortcut from the list and either (a) key the
new keystroke or (b) use the controls at the
bottom of the Shortcut Manager to assign and
save the new keystroke. When using the
controls to edit shortcuts, you must click the
save button to retain each of your changes.
To remove a shortcut (delete its keystroke
assignment), simply uncheck it. Even after
removing a shortcut, you can still access its
underlying functionality from the Macabacus
tab.
Reset Shortcuts
Click the Reset All or Reset button to restore
all or specifically selected shortcut keystrokes
to their default Macabacus settings. You will
be prompted to confirm that you want to
continue before resetting all keystrokes.
Clear Shortcuts
By default, Macabacus will assign its shortcut
keystrokes upon opening Excel (assuming no
conflicts with other add-ins). However, if you
do not want Macabacus shortcut keystrokes to be set upon opening Excel, click the Clear All button to
uncheck and disable all shortcuts listed in the Shortcut Manager. You can then selectively recheck only
those shortcuts that you wish to use.
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Override
If you have other Excel add-ins installed, their hotkey assignments (shortcut keystrokes) may conflict with
Macabacus. Shortcut assignments are given priority based on the order in which add-ins are loaded
when starting Excel, and the load order for add-ins is unpredictable. Therefore, it may be necessary to
override other installed shortcuts after starting Excel to ensure that all Macabacus shortcuts work. Note
that you can also deconflict hotkey assignments using the Shortcut Manager, avoiding the need to
override altogether. To override all other shortcut keystroke settings, click the Macabacus > Settings >
Keyboard > Override button.
Restore
If you backed up your Macabacus shortcut settings to an XML file in an older version of Macabacus,
where shortcuts are backed up separately from other Macabacus settings, you can import these settings
into a newer version of Macabacus by clicking the Macabacus > Settings > Keyboard > Restore Settings
button.
Print Shortcuts
Click the Macabacus > Settings > Keyboard > Print button to open a new workbook containing a list of all
Macabacus shortcut keystrokes that can be printed for convenient reference. You can reformat the list or
sort shortcuts by name, keystroke, category, or utility before printing.
Troubleshooting Shortcuts
If you are experiencing problems with Macabacus' keyboard shortcuts, the most likely scenario is that you
have add-ins (e.g., Cap IQ) or other software installed whose shortcuts conflict with Macabacus'
shortcuts. Add-ins are loaded in whatever order Excel decides. The latest-loaded add-ins are those whose
shortcut keystroke assignments prevail. Perform the following steps to resolve shortcut issues:
1. Click the Macabacus > Settings > Keyboard > Override button to override any shortcut conflicts with
other add-ins. This solves most shortcut-related problems.
2. If step 1 did not solve your problem, click the Macabacus > Settings > Keyboard > Shortcut Manager
button. Confirm that the shortcut keystrokes you are attempting to use are indeed assigned to their
intended operations.
3. If Macabacus shortcuts are still not working, confirm whether all Macabacus shortcuts are affected,
or just a few. Try some formatting-related shortcuts as well as some non-formatting-related
shortcuts.
4. Open a blank workbook and try the failing shortcuts there.
5. If some formatting-related shortcuts fail to work properly in the original workbook, but work correctly
in a blank workbook, the problem could be that your original workbook contains too many number
formats or styles. If so, try cleaning up your workbook using Macabacus workbook optimization
tools at Macabacus > File > Optimize.
6. Do the buttons on the Macabacus tab in the ribbon that correspond to the failing shortcuts also fail to
produce the expected result? If so, then the problem is broader in scope than shortcuts.
7. In the Shortcut Manager, click the Reset All button to return all shortcuts to their default settings and
attempt to use the shortcuts again. You may wish to back up your shortcut settings first.
8. If you are still experiencing difficulty, email support@macabacus.com for help.
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Excel or result in unexpected behavior. How many times have you hit the F1 key, pulling up Excels Help
dialog, when aiming for F2?
Macabacus offers a less destructive solution to these nuisance keys, letting users disable the F1, Insert,
Num Lock, and/or Scroll Lock keys, without requiring their physical removal. Go to the Macabacus >
Settings > Keyboard menu to selectively disable/enable these keys. Note that on some computers,
Macabacus may be unable to disable the Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys.
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3.13 Undo/Redo
The execution of any macro that makes a change to the spreadsheet destroys Excel's Undo/Redo stacks.
So, when you modify a formula and then run a macro to change number format, for example, you are
unable to use Excel's native Undo to revert to the original formula. This is a severe limitation of Excel, and
not a problem with the add-in or macro. There are no easy workarounds to this problem, unfortunately.
Excel add-ins and their users accept this loss of Undo/Redo functionality as a cost of doing business. In
other words, the benefits provided by add-ins and macros outweigh the cost of losing native Undo/Redo
capability. We believe customers of our enterprise-grade solutions shouldn't sacrifice anything to use our
tools. So, we built our own Undo/Redo stacks to track changes made to spreadsheets, restoring most of
this lost functionality. Why don't all Excel add-ins do this? Because managing custom Undo/Redo stacks
is prohibitively complex and expensive for most applications. Accordingly, very few add-ins have achieved
this advanced capability.
Macabacus Undo/Redo is designed to work seamlessly in the background, and uses the native Excel
shortcuts, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y, and Quick Access Toolbar buttons to trigger Undo/Redo operations.
Macabacus Undo/Redo options can be set on the Undo/Redo tab of the Application Settings dialog (see
below). You can set the maximum number of cells for which Macabacus Undo/Redo is available
however, too many cells may slow performance. Select which formatting properties you want Macabacus
to undo/redo (deselecting properties may improve performance), or disable Macabacus Undo/Redo
capability altogether.
Macabacus Undo/Redo solution is
not perfect due to limitations of
Excels development environment.
As a result, you may experience
differences between Macabacus
Undo/Redo functionality and native
Undo/Redo functionality. For
example, Macabacus cannot undo
row/column insertion/deletion.
Undo
Undo the last action. Repeat to
undo additional actions.
Ctrl
Redo
Redo the last action. Repeat to
redo additional actions.
Ctrl
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4. PowerPoint Tools
4.1 Presentation Automation
4.1.1 Overview
Macabacus includes several powerful tools that automate and simplify the process of creating
professional, high quality presentations, while standardizing the appearance of presentations throughout
your organization. These tools include agenda functionality, which automatically populates a table of
contents (agendas) and flysheets (section divider slides) based on sections in your presentations, a slide
numbering tool to help you exercise greater control over slide numbering in your presentations, a slide
stamp tool that allows you to mark multiple slides at once with the customizable stamp of your choosing
(e.g., CONFIDENTIAL, For Internal Use Only), and more. These tools are discussed in more detail in
other sections of this documentation.
Template Features
Each Macabacus-enabled presentation template consists of up to six special layouts that work with
certain Macabacus presentation automation tools, and a handful of content layouts. Content layouts
are any layouts in your template not designated as special layouts. Content layouts can suggest general
layout possibilities, or have specific applications, such as team pages and credentials (creds) pages.
Both special and content layouts may contain special shapes used to implement agenda and slide
stamp functionality. Special layouts and special shapes are designated as such, using Macabacus
Template Wizard in PowerPoint.
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Special Layouts
Title Page
The title page layout is intended to be used for the first slide in a presentation, unless a
separate cover page is present.
Agenda
The agenda layout can be used as your table of contents, or as a flysheet that divides
sections in a presentation, depending on your Macabacus settings. The agenda is
populated with section/subsection topics in your presentation.
Section
Divider
The section divider can be used as a flysheet when working with a table of contents. If
you are instead using agendas as flysheets, only the bullet numbering convention
found on this slide is used.
Legal
Notices
Some organizations include a slide with legal notices and disclaimers in each
presentation produced. The text on these slides is not editable by end users when the
template is properly configured using the Template Wizard.
Contact
Information
Intentionally
Blank Page
This layout supports duplex (double-sided) printing and typically includes text like
This page intentionally left blank. Inserting intentionally blank slides before flysheets
can ensure that flysheets are always printed on the front of pages.
Special Shapes
Slide Stamps
Slide stamps are text placeholder shapes that may be included in any layout in a
Macabacus-enabled presentation template to convey the privacy level of a slide or
presentation, such as CONFIDENTIAL or For Internal Use Only. Slides should
normally have no more than two slide stamp placeholders. Slide stamps are optional,
but highly recommended for most layoutsparticularly content layouts.
Section
Titles
Section titles are text placeholder shapes that may be included in any content layout in
a Macabacus-enabled presentation template to display the name of the preceding
section and/or subsection. Section titles provide the reader visual cues about the
relative positioning of a content slide in a presentation, and are updated automatically
when Macabacus updates the agenda. Section titles are optional.
Table of
Contents
Placeholder
(PowerPoint 2007 only) The table of contents slide contains a text placeholder shape
designated to hold section titles and, optionally, subtitles collected from flysheets in a
presentation. If a slide in the template is designated as a table of contents slide, then
a table of contents placeholder must be designated on that slide.
Flysheet
Title/Subtitle
(PowerPoint 2007 only) The flysheet layout contains text placeholder shapes for a
section title and subtitle. Text populating these placeholders is used to build the table
of contents.
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Do Not Preserve
Ensure that the Slide Master in your Macabacus-enabled template is not preserved. A preserved
Slide Master will have a small pin icon next to it in Slide Master view.
No Slides Required
As of Macabacus for PowerPoint v4.2.0, slides are no longer required in your Macabacus-enabled
template; only layouts. However, the presence of slides in your template will not affect the operation
of Macabacus (for example, if you update Macabacus software but not your template).
Template Wizard
With your completed, pre-configuration presentation template open in PowerPoint, open the Template
Wizard (accessed from the Macabacus > Settings menu). If you created your template using the sample
that installs with Macabacus as your starting point, then you may want to proceed directly to the Validate
tab in Template Wizard to see if your template is already valid or, if not, what issues should be addressed
for your template to validate.
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Legal Notices
The legal notices layout is commonly used for required disclosures and disclaimers. To prevent end
users from manipulating text on legal notices slides, set the body text of the slide directly in its layout in
Slide Master view (as demonstrated in the sample template that installs with Macabacus).
Agenda Shapes
The agenda layout (in Slide Master view) should contain several hidden shape groups containing
textboxes or AutoShapes (but not text placeholders), which are used to hold section/subsection numbers,
topics, and slide numbers. This is best explained by examining a live example, so open the sample
template that installs with Macabacus. With the agenda layout selected in Slide Master view, open
PowerPoints Selection Pane from the Home tab. You should see five hidden shape groups, as described
below. Unhide them.
Agenda Level 1
This required group normally contains section numbers/letters, topics, and slide
numbers at indent level 1.
Agenda Level 1
Active
This group normally contains section numbers/letters, topics, and slide numbers at
indent level 1. If you are using flysheet style Agenda, this group is required and
reflects formatting of the active section.
Agenda Level 2
This required group normally contains subsection numbers/letters, topics, and slide
numbers at indent level 2.
Agenda Level 2
Active
Agenda Level 3
This optional group is used only with flysheet style set to Topic, and most
commonly contains slide titles and slide numbers at indent level 3.
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Next, note the bracketed text in each of the grouped shapes, which tells Macabacus what purpose each
shape serves:
[#]
[Topic]
[P]
This is where Macabacus places the slide number on which the section/subsection
begins, or when using flysheet style Topic, the slide number of any shape marked
for inclusion in the table of contents.
Once you have positioned and formatted your agenda shapes in Slide Master view in your own template,
ensure that you:
Group shapes as shown in the sample template. Each group should contain a single section
letter/number, topic, and slide number textbox (slide numbers are not required, but recommended);
Use the exact grouped shape naming convention as shown above (e.g., Agenda Level 1);
Use the exact bracketed text shown above to denote shape function (e.g., [#]); and
Hide the agenda shape groups before leaving Slide Master view.
Slide Stamps
Slide stamps are optional textboxes (not to be confused with text placeholders) used to display slide
markings such as CONFIDENTIAL or DRAFT. If you choose to use slide stamps, you will generally
want to include them on all content layouts, and perhaps some special layouts, within your template. You
may include multiple stamps in a single layout, although they will all contain the same text when updated.
Note that the default text entered in the templates slide stamps is not particularly important, as the
stamp text will update when the end user applies a customizable, predefined stamp from the Macabacus
> Stamps menu. So, you could populate your stamps with dummy text, such as STAMP.
Designate these textboxes as slide stamps on the Shapes tab in Template Wizard while in Slide Master
view. If stamps are present in multiple layouts in your template, check the Apply designation to similar
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shapes in other layouts box to avoid having to individually designate similar shapes in multiple layouts,
which could be tedious. With this option checked, Macabacus looks for shapes in other layouts with the
same position and dimensions as the designated shape and applies the designation to those shapes as
well. Therefore, it is important that all such slide stamps have uniform positioning and dimensions. Slide
stamps may only be added to layouts, not the Slide Master.
Administrator Privileges
To publish to the company library, either (a) activate Macabacus using the email address of a
Macabacus account administrator, or (b) run PowerPoint as a Windows administrator. This prevents
unauthorized changes by end users.
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Adding Slides
You can add special slides and content slides from the active template to your presentation using the
Macabacus > New menu. Use this menu to add special slides to your presentation, rather than adding
them using native PowerPoint functionality, since Macabacus may perform presentation automation
operations behind-the-scenes when adding special slides. For example, when adding intentionally blank
slides, Macabacus can optionally add them throughout the presentation as required to support duplex
printing. On the other hand, adding content slides from this menu is no different from adding them
natively, except that Macabacus allows you to add multiple content slides at once in the New Content
Slide dialog.
Is My Master Preserved?
To tell if your presentations Slide Master is preserved, go to Slide Master view. If a pin icon
appears next to the Slide Master, it is preserved.
In general, you want to avoid having multiple Slide Masters in your presentations. Multiple Slide Masters
will unnecessarily bloat presentations and render some Macabacus presentation automation tools
inoperable/ineffective. Although the use of multiple Slide Masters is permissible in PowerPoint, and there
are valid use cases for it, we generally consider this poor practice more often resulting from an
oversight than intent. If you think your presentation requires multiple Slide Masters, try creating separate
Macabacus-enabled templatesone for each Slide Masterand then apply them individually as desired.
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4.3 Agendas
4.3.1 Overview
Macabacus agenda tools are used to display the sections of your presentations in a table of contents, or
table of contents-like format, based on layouts in your Macabacus-enabled template and other settings.
The agenda is determined by the sequence of sections (a native PowerPoint feature) within your
presentation, and can be displayed on either a table of contents slide or on section dividers called
flysheets, depending on your preferences. A typical agenda layout will include placeholders for section
numbers/letters, section topics, and page numbers where sections begin. Flysheets are slides that
appear as the first slide in a section.
Agenda tools are deeply integrated with native PowerPoint sections, introduced in PowerPoint 2010. This
integration allows your agenda to be updated automatically when performing native section operations,
such as adding, renaming, and deleting sections. If your Macabacus-enabled presentation template
includes section title placeholdersplaceholders on contents slides showing the parent
sections/subsections topicsection titles will be updated whenever the agenda is updated, too.
PowerPoint 2007
PowerPoint 2007 does not support sections. You can still create and update the table of contents
with Macabacus in this version of PowerPoint, but many of the other functions described herein do
not apply to PowerPoint 2007.
While native PowerPoint functionality supports only one section level, Macabacus lets you create
subsections by prepending an ampersand (@) to the section name (topic). The leading ampersand tells
Macabacus to treat the section as a subsection when populating the agenda. Sections and subsections
usually have different indent levels and/or section numbering/lettering conventions, as defined in your
Macabacus-enabled template.
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want to include similar shapes (such as all slide titles) in the table of contents. You can also unmark
shapes previously marked for inclusion in the table of contents.
Collapse Subsections
Enabling this option hides subsection topics on flysheets if the subsection is not within the current
section. This lets you fit more agenda items on a single flysheet, and improves readability.
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Macabacus updates the agenda. Section titles are optional, and must be designated in the active
template in order to use section title tools.
You can toggle the visibility of section titles from the Macabacus > Agenda menu. If you move slides to
other sections in your presentation, you can force a refresh of section titles by toggling their visibility off,
then back on. When showing section titles, if a content slides preceding flysheet represents a section,
then the sections name will appear on the slide. Alternatively, if a content slides preceding flysheet
represents a subsection, then both the preceding section and subsections names will appear on the slide,
separated by a customizable character. The separator character is a slash (/) by default, but you can
change this character on the Agenda tab of the Application Settings dialog.
If you have a slide in your presentation that was not created using a Macabacus-enabled presentation
template layout, you can still add a section title to the slide. In Slide Master view, find the slides layout
and add a textbox (not text placeholder) that will contain the section title text. The new textbox should
normally conform to the position, size, and format of section title textboxes in other layouts. With the
new textbox selected, click the Macabacus > Agenda > Mark as Section Title button. If another layout in
your presentation already supports section titles, you can simply copy its section title textbox and paste it
into the desired layout instead, without explicitly marking it as a section title (since it is already marked).
Add sections, rename sections, delete a single section, delete a single section
(including slides), delete all sections, move sections up, move sections down
PowerPoint 2013
Add sections, rename sections, delete a single section, delete a single section
(including slides), delete all sections, move sections up, move sections down
PowerPoint 2010
Add sections, rename sections, delete a single section, delete all sections
PowerPoint 2007
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Sequential Numbering
In the Slide Numbers dialog, check the Sequential numbering checkbox to tell Macabacus not to skip
numbers when numbering slides. For example, if you have a presentation with a single flysheet, and the
flysheet does not contain a slide number (or you have chosen to hide it in the Slide Numbers dialog).
With this option enabled, if the slide before the flysheet is numbered 4, the slide after the flysheet will be
numbered 5 (as if the flysheet was not there). Without this option enabled, the slide after the flysheet
would be numbered 6, as if the flysheet was numbered 5.
Automatic Updating
When you use PowerPoints default slide numbering convention, slide numbers update
automatically as you move, add, or remove slides in a presentation. However, after numbering slides
as described above (or even after manually editing slide numbers), affected slide numbers no longer
update automatically. This is expected PowerPoint behavior.
Therefore, it may be appropriate to wait to renumber slides until the presentation is otherwise
finalized and ready for print, and tolerate PowerPoints native slide numbering while you are
drafting the presentation.
Reset Numbering
Click the Reset button in the Slide Numbers dialog to use PowerPoints native slide number sequence,
overriding any number sequence changes applied as described above and allowing slide numbers to
update automatically.
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Proofing Checks
Content
Punctuation
Spacing Incorrect
Punctuation
Spacing
Inconsistent
Punctuation
Missing
Duplicate Words
Hyphenated Words
Quotes Style
Apostrophes Style
Bullet Punctuation
Grammar
Number
Abbreviation
Chart Elements
Checks for missing or improperly formatted chart elements (e.g., data labels,
legend entries).
Slide Titles
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Slide Numbers
Checks for missing slide numbers on content slides, when the presentation
convention is to show slide numbers, and flags slide numbers when the
presentation convention is to NOT show slide numbers.
Footnotes
Checks that numbered footnotes within the slide content have explanations in
the slide footer. Also, checks that footnote numbering appears in sequential
order, starting with one.
Dummy Text
Check for square brackets within a presentation, which are commonly used as
placeholders for future text.
Image Distortion
Checks images for scale height not equal to scale width, indicating distortion.
Table of Contents
Updated
Checks that the table of contents reflects section titles and subtitles appearing
on flysheet slides.
Links to Excel/
PowerPoint
Format
Line Spacing
Bullet Indentation
Bullet Size
Checks for inconsistent bullet size (relative to text) within a block of text.
Color Palette
Conformity
Checks for font, fill, and border colors that are not consistent with your
Macabacus color palette colors.
Semi-Transparent
Fills
Checks for semi-transparent fill colors that do not print or PDF well, and which
can increase PDF attachment loading time, especially on mobile devices.
Multiple Font
Families
Checks for multiple font families within a paragraph, which could signal poor
readability.
Placeholder Fill
Mismatch
Checks for placeholder fill colors that deviate from the slide master.
Placeholder Font
Style Mismatch
Checks for placeholder font styles (font family, size) that deviate from the slide
master.
Placeholder Font
Color Mismatch
Checks for placeholder font colors that deviate from the slide master.
Placeholder Bullet
Mismatch
Checks for placeholder bullet styles that deviate from the slide master.
Proofing Language
Check for text that does not use the default proofing language, and which
PowerPoint may improperly flag as misspelled.
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Layout
Multiple Slide
Masters
Checks for multiple slide masters in a presentation, which increase file size and
can degrade PowerPoint and Macabacus performance.
Checks for shapes that are partially outside of the slide boundaries.
Shape Overlapping
Text
Placeholder Layout
Mismatch
Checks for placeholders whose positions and/or dimensions deviate from the
slide master.
Placeholder Margin
Mismatch
Checks for placeholders whose internal textbox margins deviate from the slide
master.
Checks that internal textbox margins for all cells in a table are equal.
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Editing Links
Select one or more linked slides/shapes and click the Macabacus > Edit Link button. This opens the Edit
Link dialog that allows you to change the source presentation and the source slide/shape. For example,
you can use this dialog to relink a linked slide to a newer version of the source presentation.
Break Link
Select one or more linked slides/shapes and click the Macabacus > Break Link button. This removes the
link between the slide/shape and its source.
View Source
Select one or more linked slides/shapes and click the Macabacus > View Source button. If the source
presentation is already open it will be activated, and the source slide or shape will be made visible. If not,
Macabacus will open the source presentation.
Manage Links
You can manage multiple linked slides/shapes with the Manage Links dialog, accessed by clicking the
Macabacus > Manage button. With the Manage Links dialog you can perform the operations described
above on multiple linked slides/shapes simultaneously. For example, you would use this dialog to relink
all linked slides in a presentation to a newer version of the source presentation.
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For example, suppose a slide in a shared library contains year-to-date information and must be updated
weekly. Multiple Macabacus users link to this slide in their presentations. If the administrator of the
shared library simply adds the new slide and deletes the old one, all of those previously established links
would be broken.
The administrator should instead use the Migrate Links tool, accessible from the Macabacus tab in the
Links group, to migrate any existing links from the old slide to the new one, before deleting the old slide.
This will point the links in users presentations to the new slide, and the old slide can be safely deleted.
The Migrate Links tool works for migrating both slide and shape links.
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Set the width of selected shapes to the width of the copied shape
Height
Set the height of selected shapes to the height of the copied shape
Size
Set the width and height of selected shapes to the width and height of the
copied shape
Top
Set the top position of selected shapes to the top position of the copied shape
Left
Set the left position of selected shapes to the left position of the copied shape
Set the size and position of selected shapes to the size and position of the
copied shape
Vertical Midpoint
Set the vertical midpoint of selected shapes to the vertical midpoint of the
copied shape
Horizontal Midpoint
Set the horizontal midpoint of selected shapes to the horizontal midpoint of the
copied shape
Rotation
Set the rotation of the selected shapes to the rotation of the copied shape
Textbox Margins
Set the textbox margins of selected images to the textbox margins of the
copied shape
Picture Scale
Set the scale width and height (%) of selected images to the scale width and
height of the copied image
Text
Set the text displayed in selected shapes to the text displayed the copied shape
Swap Positions
Swap the position of two shapes using one of several positioning options available on the Macabacus >
Swap Positions menu:
Top Left Anchor
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Center Anchor
The following example illustrates the behavior of Swap Positions using Top Right Anchor:
Stack Shapes
Use Stack Shapes tools to align the edges of shapes relative to one another. You can optionally specify a
gap (in inches, centimeters, or points) to be included between shapes.
Stack Left
Align selected shapes so that they are horizontally positioned at the right edges
of prior shapes in the selection, as determined by horizontal position
Stack Right
Align selected shapes so that they are horizontally positioned at the left edges
of subsequent shapes in the selection, as determined by horizontal position
Stack Up
Align selected shapes so that they are vertically positioned at the bottom edges
of prior shapes in the selection, as determined by vertical position
Stack Down
Align selected shapes so that they are vertically positioned at the top edges of
subsequent shapes in the selection, as determined by vertical position
The following example illustrates the behavior of the Stack Left tool:
Distribute Shapes
Distribute the width or height of selected shapes evenly over the aggregate bounds of the selected
shapes. You can optionally specify a gap (in inches, centimeters, or points) to be included between
shapes.
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Distribute
Horizontally
Distribute selected shapes widths evenly across the aggregate width of the
entire selection, such that the widths of all selected shapes are equal
Distribute Vertically
Distribute selected shapes heights evenly across the aggregate height of the
entire selection, such that the heights of all selected shapes are equal
The following example illustrates the behavior of the Distribute Horizontally tool. Note that rectangles 1,
2, and 3 initially have different widths and are spaced unevenly.
Conform Size
Conform the width, height, or both the width and height of selected shapes to the same dimension(s) as
the first selected shape. If only a single shape is selected, it will be sized relative to the slide. For
example, clicking the Macabacus > Conform Width button will set the width of the selected shape equal
to the width of the slide.
Align Shapes
Align all selected shapes with the first selected shape. You can align top, bottom, left, or right edges, or
horizontal or vertical midpoints. These functions are similar to PowerPoints native alignment tools,
except that selected shapes are always aligned to the first selected shape. On the other hand, when you
align shapes using native PowerPoint tools, it is not always clear (or intuitive) to which of the selected
shapes the others will align.
If only a single shape is selected, it will be aligned relative to the slide. For example, clicking the
Macabacus > Center Horizontally button will horizontally center the selected shape on the slide.
Select Match
Use Select Match to select multiple shapes on a slide with similar properties (e.g., width, color, shape
type). Suppose you have a map with dozens of map markers, and you need to recolor all of the orange
markers to blue. Select a single orange marker, set your match criteria to Fill, click the Macabacus >
Select Match button to select all orange markers, and reformat the selected markers as desired. You can
apply multiple match criteria, and select multiple shapes to match.
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Resize To
Conform the dimensions of one or more selected shapes to a customizable Standard Size, or a selected
range, chart, or other object in Excel/Word, from the Macabacus > Shape Size > Resize To menus.
Conform Adjustments
Adjustments are changes made to AutoShapes (e.g., arrows) by dragging their yellow handles. You can
set adjustments made in similar, selected AutoShapes to the adjustments in the first selected AutoShape
by clicking the Macabacus > More Shape Tools > Conform Adjustments button. To do this using native
PowerPoint functionality would require tedious and imprecise manual adjustment of each shape
individually.
Autofit Toggle
Toggle between PowerPoints Do not Autofit and Resize shape to fit text text box settings, and enable
text wrap for selected shapes. PowerPoints Shrink text on overflow setting is excluded from Autofit
Toggle because it produces unpredictable and inconsistent font sizes that leave your presentations
looking unprofessional. Text wrap should almost always be used, so Macabacus enables it by default
when you use Autofit Toggle. The Autofit Toggle button is on the Macabacus tab in the Text group.
Redact
Use Macabacus to redact (i.e., black out) acquirer or target company names or any other sensitive
information in your presentations. Macabacus replaces existing text with solid rectangles, which are
actually pipe (|) characters on a background matching the font color of the text being redacted (usually
black). You can redact selected text or redact all occurrences of a word or phrase in your presentation.
The width of the redaction rectangle very closely approximates the width of the original text to avoid line
wrapping changes that would otherwise affect the appearance of your slides.
Redacting tools are found under the Macabacus > Redact menu in the Text group. Macabacus can redact
almost any text on slides, including text in tables, SmartArt, and speaker notes, but cannot redact text in
images and does not redact text in charts, slide masters, layouts, and slide comments. To redact images,
try Macabacus Airplane Mode.
Split Text
Split paragraphs in the selected shape into separate shapes by clicking the Macabacus > More Text Tools
> Split Text button.
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Merge Text
To merge text from multiple shapes into a single shape:
1. Select the shape into which you want to merge text from other shapes.
2. With the first shape still selected, select the other shapes whose text you want to merge.
3. Click the Macabacus > More Text Tools > Merge Text button.
Ungroup Table
To split a table into individual text boxes, each representing a cell in the table, click the Macabacus >
Ungroup Table button.
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Fix Grayscale
In grayscale or black and white views, or in
presentations printed in black and white, colors
within shapes can sometimes appear too dark
or too light. Click the Macabacus > Fix
Grayscale button to correct the grayscale
appearance for all shapes in a presentation
prior to printing in black and white.
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Peek
Right click on a redacted picture and select Airplane Mode > Peek in the context menu to view the picture
for a fraction of a second.
4.12 Miscellaneous
Send to End
Send slides selected in the thumbnails pane to the end of the presentation (to perhaps a graveyard or
appendix), without losing your place in the presentation. This is particularly handy if your presentation
has many slides that would require excessive scrolling to (a) drag or cut/paste the slides to the end of the
presentation and then (b) return to your original place in the presentation. The Send to End button is
found on the context menu that appears when you right click slides in the thumbnails pane.
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5. Word Tools
Macabacus for Word functionality is substantially similar to that described in other sections of this
manual.
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