Comments on: Microsoft Excel Can’t Handle Clinton and Obama’s Moola

By: Danyel Fisher

Danyel Fisher — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:08:00 +0000

To do the Excel/SQL thing, just look at the Data tab and the “From Other Sources” dropdown. It’ll bring up an ODBC dialog, and you can use that to point to an SQL table.

I tend to create specialized views that reflect what I want to show inside Excel so that I don’t need to filter inside Excel.

(This also works wonderfully with PivotCharts.)

By: Ekaf

Ekaf — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:28:00 +0000

@Jon – Unfortunately Excel 2007 can’t handle ‘millions of rows’, but rather about 1 million. Yes – I’ve bumped into this limit more than once.

Jon’s suggestion to use Excel in conjunction with a database sounds interesting… Any pointers to tutorials on how to do this?

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:41:00 +0000

@Nathan: What response had you expected? Excel isn’t a database (though it’s great for analyzing databases), and people are blaming Excel for having this shortcoming, rather than using the proper tool for the job (the proper spanner to pound in the bolt?).

@Pierce: So why not use Excel 2003 and SQL to analyze the database? Excel makes a decent front end. I’ve used Excel/SQL to analyze Access databases, all manner of text dumps, and even other Excel workbooks. Filter the data before it even gets into Excel, and it will go much faster.

By: Pierce Presley

Pierce Presley — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:25:00 +0000

This raises the question of why the FEC is using Excel 2K3 as its main computing tool, rather than an SQL flavor. Don’t get me wrong, Excel is great and I use it for all sorts of things, including things that would be better on a database, because I’m more comfortable with Excel. But this is a federal agency with a budget and the ability to put the data in the proper container, not a once and future journalist in his home office with a cobbled-together collection of outdated commercial and more recent free software.

By: Nathan Yau

Nathan Yau — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:21:00 +0000

@aj: a valid question, but like jon said, when you’re dealing with a spreadsheet with hundreds of thousands of rows, Excel will work in the sense that it’ll load, but the usability is just painful. So while excel can “handle” large datasets, it can’t really.

By: Nathan Yau

Nathan Yau — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:01:00 +0000

@Jon: as i was writing this post, i thought of you. i was expecting a slightly different reaction :)

By: aj

aj — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:56:00 +0000

Why title it “Excel cant handle … ” ?? Isnt it better to be honest and say Excell 2003 cant handle some data? I mean, what will people do next to get their blog readership up.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:47:00 +0000

Time to trash Excel and Microsoft again. People are using a spreadsheet application as a database, and running into problems! Why couldn’t Excel work like a database, instead of a spreadsheet? Obviously a flaw in Microsoft’s design, not in our usage of the tools.

At least if you upgrade to Excel 2007, you’ll have millions of rows, plenty of room. Never mind how slowly it will run, you get special visual effects which are so kewl, d00d