Joanna

What you say about what you have and what you want appears to be
tasks that are very easy to do in Excel. The devil, of course, is in the
details.

Some details: You say that you start with 8 Excel files. Is it
ALWAYS 8 files or is that number variable? Excel must be able to find those
files. Is the path to those files always the same? Are other files located
in that same path? If so, how can the pertinent files be distinguished from
the rest? Is the Master you refer to a file or a sheet in some file.

Deleting columns and freezing panes - easy. Of course, you have
to say what columns and what cell.

Remove most rows - easy. You say the pertinent rows have words.
Do you mean the other rows have numbers every time? In what column?

Batch-extract data - easy. Of course you have to say from where
to where.

Otto

wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I have only been using Excel for about 4 months and in the process of
learning new things. I want to make use of macros to automate the
repetitive tasks I do every day, but just when I think I've mastered
each one, I get error messages.

To make myself clearer: I work in a call center, and every day I have
to sift through about 8 *.xls files containing raw data to gain
figures about call volumes. I then copy and paste the relevant
figures into a properly formatted Master worksheet with formulas etc.
The tasks I do every day are repetitive, but I don't know whether
these types of tasks can be automated, can someone please advise?

1. Filtering: Deleting the same columns and freezing panes at the
exact same cell.
On most of the raw data sheets, there is a lot of unnecessary data,
and so before I even start to examine it, I eliminate the excess data
by removing the same irrelevant columns, and then I finally freeze the
pane at the same cell.
I tried to record a macro of me doing this, but I get an error message
telling me:
Run-time error '1004' Cannot use that command on Overlapping
Sections

..yet i get no error message when performing the exact same thing
manually. Surely there must be a way to automate this...?

2. Remove most rows: In certain raw data sheets, I face a mountain
of figures yet I only need to get 4 figures found on 6 rows. The
other 300 or so rows are unnecessary, and so I have to manually scroll
down through them all until I see the row I need. The rows I need are
easily identifiable, as they are the only rows that contain words
("Brazil Total Call Volume", "Ireland Total Call Volume" etc). Can I
set up a filter or rule to display only what I need?

3. Finally (and I'm guessing this would be too good to be true..) -
is there any function or even 3rd-party program that can actually
batch-extract the data from predefined cells on a worksheet and paste
them into pre-defined cells on another worksheet? Then I really would
not have to work at all... :-p

Joanna