MET workshops
Excel for Wordies: accounting and workflow
A basic working knowledge of Excel can help language professionals and project managers with frequent tasks such as billing, quoting, accounting and scheduling. Translators familiar with the program will translate spreadsheet files with greater ease, and confident users may also find it useful for quick glossary creation and as an organizing tool. However, the Excel interface has been known to discourage people more used to word processors. This workshop aims to build confidence and will assume little knowledge of the program.
Facilitator: Mary Fons i Fleming
Purpose: To understand and overcome the basic ways in which the Excel interface frustrates translators, especially by behaving differently from Word. To learn to use formulas and names for basic invoicing, quoting and accounting purposes.
Description: Most translators, editors and interpreters are familiar with the Word interface and with their favourite CAT tools, but many find Excel hard to deal with, whether they are translating spreadsheet text or trying to use its features. Learning Excel’s strengths and figuring out how to deal with some of its trickier aspects can help with translation jobs and streamline admin work. Each participant will practise skills using whatever version of Excel is installed on their computer. Further learning through informed trial and error will be encouraged and facilitated.
Structure: The workshop will begin with a basic introduction to the Excel interface, including data entry, navigation, formulas and names. Participants will then be walked through a template for quotes, including formatting and formulas. Next, they will be shown an invoice and will modify the quotes template step by step, to produce an invoice form with a similar appearance. If time allows, they will be walked through the features of a very simple accounting template and will practise making changes to it.
Who should attend? Language professionals frequently stumped by Excel or wanting to learn more about its possibilities.
Outcome skills: Participants will be able to navigate Excel spreadsheets with confidence, understand spreadsheet formulas and produce their own spreadsheets.
Pre-meeting information: Participants will be sent a brief survey to complete before the workshop to help fit the content to their needs. Because this is a hands-on workshop, users must bring their own laptops with an installed working copy of Excel (preferably Excel 2010 or later). Please make sure you have Microsoft Excel installed. Open Office, Libre Office, Numbers and other spreadsheet programs are very similar to Excel, but we will not have enough time to address the differences in this session.
About the facilitator: Mary Fons i Fleming is a conference interpreter and translator based in Barcelona and a founding partner at AIB (Associated Interpreters of Barcelona). She uses Excel regularly for glossaries, invoicing and quoting, and occasionally for statistical reporting and parallel-text processing.
