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Does anyone use PowerPoint and/or Excel consistently at work?

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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:26 PM
Original message
Does anyone use PowerPoint and/or Excel consistently at work?
Just curious, because it's been years since I've used either. What would be the one to relearn first? Thanks!
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:30 PM
Response to Original message
1. PowerPoint is easier
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:32 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. And more fun iirc. :) How
are you? Still in the NE? Are you going to FL?
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:33 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. I'm great! In MA, just finishing first semester back at school.
How are you ????
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:39 PM
Response to Reply #4
10. I didn't know you were back in MA. What's your major? I'm
doing okay, moved to GA!

Ah, life! :D
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:47 PM
Response to Reply #10
14. Art, but changing to Writing
See your PM
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MadMaddie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:31 PM
Response to Original message
2. I use it all the time at work
both have their quirks.

What are you trying to do with the programs? I think PPT is easier then excel, I would say learn excel first because there are tons of formulas you can use and they are great.

Good Luck!
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tammywammy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:33 PM
Response to Original message
5. Every day pratically
PowerPoint is easier to learn. Excel can be so complex, I still find myself learning new stuff with it. A guy I work with is a master, MASTER, on Excel...I don't think Bill Gates knows as much about Excel as my co-worker.

I have a link the coworker sent me to an online guide for Excel. When I get in tomorrow I'll look for it and PM you.
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RoyGBiv Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:35 PM
Response to Original message
6. Yes ...

Which one you want to re-learn first depends on what you want or need to do.

But I'd concentrate on Excel. Being able to use a spreadsheet is essential in today's office environment. Using it for all it's worth can also be complicated.

Giving presentations is also often essential, but you can pretty much wing it with PowerPoint. I've met very few people who actually use PowerPoint for anything more than to create basic slides, which you can figure out in an afternoon.

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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:42 PM
Response to Reply #6
11. Thank you; that's the impression I got with PP, though Excel got
pretty complicated for me. I do remember trying to crack that nut but my requirements weren't too taxing.
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kid a Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:36 PM
Response to Original message
7. i use PP on a macbook almost every day.. easy to learn and use.
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janx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:38 PM
Response to Original message
8. Powerpoint (for me) was easiest to re-learn.
Get a tutorial or take a tutorial at a temp. agency. Excel was a drag; it's not intuitive at all, but you can become used to it again.
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Sub Atomic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:38 PM
Response to Original message
9. Not sure what you do for work or why you want to use either but
when I was working, it was a combination of both. That said, MS Office 2007 came out with statistical graphing abilities (amongst other enhanced features) in Excel that you used to have to buy extensions or additional programs to accomplish. Not sure what the changed in PowerPoint.

:toast:
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HopeHoops Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:43 PM
Response to Original message
12. PowerPoint is a great tool for people with nothing to say and too much time to make it obvious.
Edited on Sun Dec-13-09 11:43 PM by HopeHoops
Other than that, it is pretty much useless.

Excel is easily the slowest spreadsheet application in history. Open Office Calc blows it away (and writes fully compatible Excel files). I forget which version of Excel but it would have been the late 90's. When you selected something like X23-L23 (in that order) and used the menu to select "graph", it brought up a flight simulator in a dark blue and purple world that you navigated with the mouse. In the center, there was a monument with a scrolling marquee with credits for Excel and a shitload of quotes and not-so-funny sayings. The simulator was resident in memory. There was no disk activity at all when you activated it, which meant it was loaded when you LAUNCHED Excel. No wonder the fucker took so long to start up. It doesn't have the flight simulator anymore, but it takes even longer to load on machines that are far faster. M$ has first prize for making things bigger and slower.

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aikoaiko Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-13-09 11:43 PM
Response to Original message
13. I suggest mastering excel and it can lead to good job stuff.
Edited on Sun Dec-13-09 11:45 PM by aikoaiko


edited
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patrice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-14-09 12:26 AM
Response to Reply #13
16. That's what I say. I'd recommend a little Power-point, but Excel is definitely the better job skill.
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patrice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-14-09 12:21 AM
Response to Original message
15. I have noticed a definite improvement in Help systems from what they used to be.
The trick is to know how to query it.

I think Excel is easier. It is also quite robust. Useful for many, many, many different types of things and, as a simple data tool, it is very exportable into a variety of other file-types and easily imported into more sophisticated data tools such as Access, which is, itself, pretty easy to get used to for simple database stuff.

Excel is also good because in the last couple of jobs I have had I found it easy to discover things they needed that had not been developed yet and Excel was an easy, scalable, and revisable response to those situations, so I was able to create things that they needed process-wise to get things done.
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left is right Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-14-09 12:28 AM
Response to Original message
17. I love Excel
Used it daily at my job until September--changed jobs and haven't been able to use it since. Miss it a lot but this position offers more money
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Indenturedebtor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-14-09 12:32 AM
Response to Original message
18. I use excel nearly constantly
Powerpoint is easy to learn... so I wouldn't pay someone to teach me under any circumstance. If you're not going to be analyzing datasets or working with databases in general, I wouldn't suggest paying to learn excel either. There are plenty of free online tutorials that will teach you far more than most people in the business world know.
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