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XL Toolbox Changelog

What's new in XL Toolbox 7.0.0 Alpha 15

Nov 22, 2015
  • Alpha 15 of the XL Toolbox NG series is all about bug fixes

New in XL Toolbox 7.0.0 Alpha 14 (Sep 22, 2015)

  • FIX: Batch export crashed (report ID 667aed57).
  • FIX: Close ‘update available’ dialog when downloading update.
  • FIX: Provide more meaningful error messages if a color space conversion is not implemented (report ID 665ecebe).
  • IMPROVED: CSV export performance was dramatically improved.

New in XL Toolbox 7.0.0 Alpha 13 (Sep 22, 2015)

  • NEW: CSV export feature.

New in XL Toolbox 7.0.0 Alpha 12 (Sep 22, 2015)

  • FIX: Do not crash on graphic export.

New in XL Toolbox 6.60 (May 13, 2015)

  • Bug fix:
  • Graphic export: Prevent “access denied” errors.
  • Prevent application errors when setting status bar text.
  • Workaround:
  • Undo: Added option to disable XL Toolbox Undo; this may be useful for those users who experience problems with the Undo feature. Note that this does not disable the Excel undo, just the ability to undo changes made by the XL Toolbox. Find the option in the Preferences ? Miscellaneous and in the Undo error window.
  • Improvements:
  • Update FreeImage.dll.

New in XL Toolbox 6.53 (Jul 17, 2014)

  • Bug fix:
  • Annotate chart: Correctly label charts with multiple data series.

New in XL Toolbox 6.52 (Mar 10, 2014)

  • Improvement ## - 1-Way ANOVA: Enable post-hoc testing even if the ANOVA is not significant.
  • Bug fix:
  • Chart export: Prevent overflow error with very large images (report ID 6IE3CH).
  • The installer is more tolerant to

New in XL Toolbox 6.51 (Feb 22, 2014)

  • Improvements:
  • Formula builder: Improve usability when ‘Keep open’ is checked.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Formula builder: Fix data collection for groups labeled with numbers “0” and “1”.
  • 2-Way ANOVA: Due to a regression, ANOVA could not be performed with data laid out in table format.

New in XL Toolbox 6.50 (Dec 5, 2013)

  • Improvements:
  • Keyboard shortcuts: A new shortcut to quit Excel was added: CTRL+SHIFT+Q. (The standard shortcut CTRL+Q that is used in many other applications did not work during testing, therefore the SHIFT key was included.)
  • Bug fixes:
  • Chart export: Changed the way the print size is applied to prevent crashes due to locked objects (error report IDs #6COMRZ, #6CMVGE, #6CA87V etc.).
  • 2-Way ANOVA: Fixed display of global mean on screen. (The global mean was always reported correctly in the full report.)

New in XL Toolbox 6.22 (Dec 5, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed broken color management.
  • Several cosmetic fixes and minor bug fixes.

New in XL Toolbox 6.21 (Dec 5, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Error bars: Prevent crashes when error data is manually set.
  • Automatic updates: Fix display of progress bar.

New in XL Toolbox 6.20 (Dec 5, 2013)

  • New translation:
  • Thanks to Lucio Agostinho Rocha, the Toolbox is now available in Brazilian Portuguese! Muito obrigado!
  • Improvements:
  • Changed internal handling of DLL files. This finally solves all “Solver Addin” as well as “FreeImage DLL not found” problems and ensures 64-bit compatibility.
  • Information about the current translation is now shown in the Preferences; the translation file can be updated by the click of a button.
  • Added a system information dialog to enable users to send detailed debugging information to the developer in case of errors.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Export for publication: Prevent file access conflict with color profiles.
  • Error bars: Identify the correct error data range if several column series are in one column, or several row series are in one row.
  • Quick chart export: Prevent crash in certain situations.
  • Various minor bug fixes and improvements.

New in XL Toolbox 6.11 (Dec 5, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Quick-save chart works with single charts again.

New in XL Toolbox 6.10 (Dec 5, 2013)

  • Improvements:
  • Export for publication: The Toolbox handles locked objects during an export operation more gracefully now. New options were added to the Preferences to automatically unlock objects and suppress messages.
  • Save all charts: It is now possible to save high-resolution versions of all charts and graphic objects in a workbook; the command was renamed to Batch Export.
  • Formula builder: The formula builder now features a wizard-style workflow.
  • Bug fixes:
  • 32-bit version: Fixed ‘FreeImage DLL not found’ error.
  • 64-bit version: Fixed broken updater.
  • Other changes:
  • The website was redesigned and uses the Gumby 2 framework now.

New in XL Toolbox 5.09 (Mar 26, 2013)

  • Renamed internally used DLL files in an attempt to avoid conflicts with the solver add-in of Excel 2013.

New in XL Toolbox 5.08 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Fix a bug that crashed the Error Bar function if a chart contained single-value data series (report IDs 5WAB2X, 5WA9VA, 5U9OG1, 5V59ZO).
  • Several other, minor bugs were fixed.
  • Updated translations.

New in XL Toolbox 5.07 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed a bug that would crash the Error Bars function with Smart Mode enabled and error data located below the chart data.
  • Fixed a bug that caused incorrect error value assignment if a chart's data ranges had been rearranged.
  • Fixed a bug that caused error bars to be white in Excel 2007-2010 if the chart series' marker line was set to 'none'.

New in XL Toolbox 5.06 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed a bug that prevented deletion of keyboard shortuts.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the Interactive Error Bar function to use the wrong cells for the error data in certain cases.

New in XL Toolbox 5.05 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • APPFAILURE crashes on 64-bit Windows 7 systems.
  • Minor glitches were fixed.

New in XL Toolbox 5.04 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Export for publication: Fix 'DLL entry point not found' error when exporting large graphs.
  • Spread Scatter: Provide help if the chart does not meet the requirements, rather than crashing (fixes error report IDs 5PJH7L, 5PJ9GZ, 52FSFW, 5Z3N90, as well as 59UU98 [Sourceforge bug tracker item

New in XL Toolbox 5.03 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Fix compile errors ("unknown user defined type") when checking for and downloading Toolbox updates in Excel 2000-2007.

New in XL Toolbox 5.02 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • No longer complain about missing FreeImage DLL.
  • Do not crash when chart font autoscale function is called without an active worksheet (fix for error report ID 5JFWL6).
  • Do not crash due to rounding errors when performing Levene's test in 1-way ANOVA (error report ID 5INQED).

New in XL Toolbox 5.01 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • No longer cause compile errors with Excel 2007.

New in XL Toolbox 5.00 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Improvements"
  • Error bars: The error bar algorithm was overhauled, so that assignment of positive and negative values for multiple chart series should be much more robust.
  • Transpose wizard: Added the ability to analyze/transpose several data sets (plates) at once.
  • Linear regression: Added the ability to use dates as independent variable.
  • Improved internationalization and localization.
  • The FreeImage library was really updated to version 3.15.1. The FreeImage source code is no longer supplied with the installer; instead, a link to the online version of the source code is included.
  • Multiple bug fixes.
  • Known issues:
  • The documentation is not fully up-to-date.
  • Color management does not work in 64-bit.

New in XL Toolbox 4.01 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Move chart series: No longer crash on chart sheets (error report ID 5EXHMU).
  • XL Toolbox for Excel 2007/2010: Fixed a ribbon UI XML error.
  • XL Toolbox for Excel 2000/2003: Fixed 'object variable not set' errors that occurred when Preferences were changed (error report IDs 5EXOIE, 5EU7S0, 5EUB0F, 5EWZRD, 5EW1GS).
  • Improved internationalization of installer.

New in XL Toolbox 4.00 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • New features:
  • XL Toolbox now comes with translations! As a start, a German translation is included.
  • If the Toolbox has a translation file for your system's language, it will automatically be used on startup. You can switch languages in the Preferences.
  • Improvements:
  • Reports: Added a new preference option "Add reports to end of sheets" which can be useful if the order of worksheets must be preserved (fix/workaround for error report IDs 5A9I4J, 5A9I84, 5A9IAJ).
  • Bug fixes:
  • CMYK graphic export: Fixed a bug that would cause a crash if color management was enabled (report ID 5DV7G0)
  • 1-Way ANOVA: Finally found the cause of errors 4YFCZ4, 59R3W5, and 5B9923: A "subscript out of range" error occurred if two or more groups had the same averages.
  • Chart export: Fixed an overflow issue (report ID 5D5G9P). No longer crashes when trying to export a chart sheet with no active selection(report ID 5C3V6U).
  • Automatic backups: Improved handling of network paths.
  • Quick-save chart: Fixed a long-standing bug that would cause the chosen filename to always end with 'png'.
  • Export chart for publication: Avoid overflow error (report ID 59JOHO); minor bug fixes.
  • Excel 2000-2003 toolbar: The "Design chart" button now has an icon.
  • 1-Way ANOVA: Fixed a Division-By-Zero error.
  • Minor bug fixes and improvements.
  • Other changes:
  • The installer (InnoSetup) was updated to the latest version (5.4.2) and includes translations for the same languages as the XL Toolbox.
  • The FreeImage library was updated to the latest version (3.15.1).

New in XL Toolbox 3.10 (Sep 19, 2011)

  • Improvements:
  • Error bars: The Error Bar function now has two distinct modes of operation. In standard mode, it locates error values based on a certain offset to the right of or below the chart data. In advanced mode (which used to be the only mode available), it looks for empty cells that delineate the chart data block, and picks the appropriate error values from the adjacent block of cells. An explanatory screen was added that is shown the first time the Error Bar function is used.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Open file from cell: Prevented run-time errors if several cells were selected at once (error report ID 53NMZ1). Only the filename in the first selected cell will be opened.
  • Other changes:
  • The help file is now built using Doxygen, making maintenance easier. The help text on the user preferences and the error bar function was updated.

New in XL Toolbox 3.02 (May 27, 2011)

  • Improvements:
  • The updater asks for confirmation before downloading if the target file exists already.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed issues with Missing Visual Basic References that could cause compile errors on startup.
  • Chart quick-save: Prevent runtime errors if IrfanView is not found (possible fix for report ID 51458T).
  • Added more debugging information to facilitate bug-hunting.

New in XL Toolbox 3.01 (May 21, 2011)

  • Fixed a disastrous bug that prevented many chart-related functions from working at all (special thanks to user Michael for pointing this out!).
  • Check for updates: The update check interval was not correctly saved after changing it in the Preferences.

New in XL Toolbox 3.00 (May 11, 2011)

  • New features:
  • Open file / jump to from cell: A neat new power user feature to open a file or jump to a cell range indicated by the text in the current cell. Open a file identified by a file name in the currently selected worksheet cell. The file may be an Office file, but also an executable program, or a folder. This way, you can easily keep a list of external programs and places in a spreadsheet and run or open them via the menu command or keyboard shortcut (default: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-O). If the cell contains a qualified reference (e.g., [Workbook.xls]Sheet1!A1), the appropriate cells in the target workbook will be selected. If the cell contains no file name but a reference to a cell (e.g., Sheet3!B8, this command will jump to that cell or range of cells in the current workbook. Users of Excel 2000-2003 may need to use the "Repair toolbar" command from the XL Toolbox menu to make an icon appear on the toolbar.
  • Office Detect & Repair: (Office 2010 only) Microsoft Office comes with a "Detect & Repair" tool (a.k.a. "Diagnostics" in Office 2007). This handy little tool finds and fixes errors in Office installations. In Office 2010, it does not appear in the main Excel menu. It can be run from the XL Toolbox Preferences window ("Miscellaneous" tab).
  • Improvements:
  • Automatic backups: New default backup folder ".backup".
  • Checking for updates at startup now times out quicker, to avoid temporary freezing of Excel.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed a compile error in 64-bit systems.
  • Fixed the corrupted offline help file.
  • Prevent runtime errors if Toolbox functions are called with no worksheet open (report IDs 4WW0WW, 506JRI).

New in XL Toolbox 2.81 (May 11, 2011)

  • New features:
  • Open file / jump to from cell: A neat new power user feature to open a file or jump to a cell range indicated by the text in the current cell. Open a file identified by a file name in the currently selected worksheet cell. The file may be an Office file, but also an executable program, or a folder. This way, you can easily keep a list of external programs and places in a spreadsheet and run or open them via the menu command or keyboard shortcut (default: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-O). If the cell contains a qualified reference (e.g., [Workbook.xls]Sheet1!A1), the appropriate cells in the target workbook will be selected. If the cell contains no file name but a reference to a cell (e.g., Sheet3!B8, this command will jump to that cell or range of cells in the current workbook. Users of Excel 2000-2003 may need to use the "Repair toolbar" command from the XL Toolbox menu to make an icon appear on the toolbar.
  • Office Detect & Repair: (Office 2010 only) Microsoft Office comes with a "Detect & Repair" tool (a.k.a. "Diagnostics" in Office 2007). This handy little tool finds and fixes errors in Office installations. In Office 2010, it does not appear in the main Excel menu. It can be run from the XL Toolbox Preferences window ("Miscellaneous" tab).
  • Improvements:
  • Automatic backups: New default backup folder ".backup".
  • Checking for updates at startup now times out quicker, to avoid temporary freezing of Excel.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed a compile error in 64-bit systems.
  • Fixed the corrupted offline help file.
  • Prevent runtime errors if Toolbox functions are called with no worksheet open (report IDs 4WW0WW, 506JRI).

New in XL Toolbox 2.81 (Mar 17, 2011)

  • Fixed a showstopper bug that affected 64-bit systems. There may be more of those. See the notes for version 2.80
  • Several minor bug fixes and changes

New in XL Toolbox 2.80 (Mar 2, 2011)

  • The XL Toolbox version 2.80 provides initial support for 64-bit Excel 2010. This means that the Toolbox should successfully install and start with 64-bit Excel 2010. Please note that 64-bit compatibility has not been tested by the developer (due to lack of a 64-bit testing suite). Therefore, 64-bit users should be extra cautious and save their work often.
  • Also note that the currently latest version of Excel (i.e., 2010), which comes with Visual Basic for Applications version 7, is required for 64-bit compatibility.
  • New features:
  • One-way ANOVA: Added new methods for multiple comparison (posthoc) testing: Holm-Sidak and Tukey.
  • Adjust tick label offset: Added a new option to the Preferences (tab "Miscellaneous") to have the Y axis labels of all charts moved closer to the axis every time a workbook is opened. This provides a workaround for the Excel bug which does not save the tick label position/offset with the file.
  • Improvements:
  • Installer: The installer now correctly recognizes the Excel addins folder in international setups. Previous versions assumed a "Microsoft\Addins" folder in the user's Application Data folder, which was true for (obviously) the English as well as the German versions of Excel, but not necessarily for other languages. For instance, the Spanish Excel may use "Suplementos", and the Dutch Excel may use "Invoegtoepassing" rather than "Addins".
  • Graph export for publication: RGB color separation to CMYK in the absence of color management has been sped up dramatically. (Technically, the calculations are now performed in an external DLL programmed in C++.) Note that generally, color separation should be done using color management, but if the need for a simple RGB->CMYK conversion arises, the XL Toolbox can now perform this task much faster.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Chart designer: Fixed persistent border of bars/columns even if "no border" was requested.
  • FormulaBuilder: Fixed a bug with automatic generation of names for cell ranges. Implemented a workaround for an Excel 2010 peculiarity.
  • Fixed an obscure problem which would hide Excel 2010 after startup.
  • Network paths that are mapped to drive letters can now be used for automatic backups.
  • Several minor and/or cosmetic fixes.

New in XL Toolbox 2.73a (Dec 2, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • Publication-quality graphic export: Improved stability when exporting large, high-resolution graphics. The "could not obtain DIB section" error should no longer occur. Note that for extremely large images, the Toolbox may still run into memory problems. However, the Toolbox is now able to produce e.g. a 600 dpi, full-color, US Letter-sized (8.5"x11") image (32 megapixels). – The usability of the spin buttons for the print size and DPI settings has been improved.
  • Copy chart format: The behavior of the Copy Chart Format has been changed so that copying of styles and formatting of axes is separate from copying of text and numbers.
  • Network handling: Improved the XL Toolbox ability to handle network shares, e.g. if a user's data folder is networked and mapped to a drive letter.
  • New default keyboard shortcut: Use CTRl+SHIFT+X for the "Export for publication" function. Note that this default keyboard short cut is available for new Toolbox installations only, or after you click "Reset to defaults" on the Preferences' shortcuts configuration page.
  • Components: Upgraded the FreeImage library to version 3.14.1.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Two-Way ANOVA: Prevent crashes if a non-valid cell range was entered (report ID 4OG60I).
  • Preferences: Fixed an annoying bug that caused all Spread Scatter settings to be permanently disabled.
  • Several minor bug fixes and cosmetic improvements.
  • Other changes:
  • The XL Toolbox installer has been updated to InnoSetup version 5.4.

New in XL Toolbox 2.72 (Sep 9, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • Custom Error Bars: Added an option in the Interactive Error Bars dialog to use different values for the 'positive' and 'negative' error bars. If set, the 'positive' error values will be taken from the first selected row or column, and the 'negative' values from the row below or the column to the right. Note that it is not necessary to select two rows or columns for this to work.
  • Several minor code optimizations.
  • Bug fixes :
  • Selection Assistant: Modified the code to prevent rather idiosyncratic "type mismatch" runtime errors that some users have been experiencing (error erport IDs 4ISJFU, 4ISVOC, 4LU53Y, 4MG9T9).
  • Two-way ANOVA: Prevent the name picker from showing every time the 2-way ANOVA is called on a workbook with named ranges.
  • The installer was modified to prevent "access denied" errors during installation that a seemingly increasing number of would-be users has been experiencing.
  • NEW for developers
  • Starting with version 2.72, the XL Toolbox provides an application programming interface (API) to enable other Excel VBA projects to make use of some of the Toolbox' functionality.
  • At the present time, this is a minimal API with a single function only. It will be expanded over time as the need arises.
  • In order to use the API, the XL Toolbox needs to be referenced in the Visual Basic Editor (Tools menu > References). The API is documented in the Module_API module itself.
  • Function XLTB_SaveSelectionToFile() as Long
  • Exposes the "Export for Publication" feature. Save the current selection (cells or graphic objects) as a bitmap or vector graphic file.

New in XL Toolbox 2.71 (Aug 2, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • Two-way ANOVA: Introduced an alternative input method: linearized format. In addition to tabular data, the Toolbox' 2-way ANOVA now accepts lists of data, where the labels for the two factors A and B are written in a "Factor A, Factor B" (e.g. "wildtype, untreated", "knockout, drug A") style in single cells. The separator charactor need not be a comma.
  • Save all charts: Removed the 30-character limit for file name prefix and suffix. Added buttons to set the target folder to the current workbook's folder and to reset the target folder to the initial path.
  • Several minor improvements.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Formula builder: The formula builder did not entirely respect the different specifications of different versions of Excel. It now correctly implements the 30-arguments limit and the 1024-characters limit for Excel 2000-2003 formulas. Newer versions of Excel (2007, 2010) can handle formulas with 255 arguments and 8192 characters.
  • The formula builder skips empty group names now, if empty cells are interspersed with the data.
  • Automatic backups: Prevent ugly crashes if a backup folder could not be created or located (error report ID 4KA3VR).
  • Chart design: Fill patterns could not be set to "none".
  • Select all shapes: The Toolbox would crash if a worksheet contained hidden shapes (e.g., cell comment tooltips).

New in XL Toolbox 2.70 (Apr 12, 2010)

  • New features:
  • Usability: All XL Toolbox actions are now optionally accessible with keyboard shortcuts. Shortcuts can be defined in the Preferences dialog. Note: By default, keyboard shortcuts are disabled!
  • Repeat last command: The common "repeat" shortcut CTRL+Y can now be used to repeat the last Toolbox command.
  • Select all shapes: This command provides a one-click method to select all shapes (embedded charts and drawing objects) on a worksheet, without selecting the worksheet itself (as the keyboard shortcut CTRL+A would do).
  • 'Save as' command: In Excel, the shortcut SHIFT+F2 can be used to save a workbook with a new name. The XL Toolbox now exposes the same functionality via the common CTRL+SHIFT+S shortcut as known from other software.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Linear regression: Fixed several bugs the data validation and data presentation (error report ID 4ERVBQ).
  • Save all charts: Implemented a workaround for the Excel bug that produced incorrect internal chart names. – The Toolbox no longer crashes if charts are contained in a group of drawing elements; charts that are members of a group cannot be saved however.
  • Chart Design: Automatic series definitions correctly assign markeres for line and scatter plots now.
  • Chart design: The Toolbox no longer crashes if Excel fails to set the size of the chart series markers; it will now silently continue (error report ID 4FZ6QQ).
  • Error bars: Implemented a workaround for a occasional "Object no longer valid" errors (report ID: 4CD6NN).
  • Revised code in order to prevent occasional "Type mismatch" errors in the Selection Assistant (and potentially other functions) (error report IDs 4DKD0P, 4FZQCM).
  • Chart annotation: Prevent crashes if Excel fails to set the data labels for a chart (error report ID 4EWI7A).
  • Chart series order: The "Move series forward" and "Move series backward" commands did not do anything in Excel 2000-2003.
  • The "spin buttons" (up/down arrows) in some text entry fields for values with decimals did not work properly in international versions of Excel: e.g., size information in the "Export for Publication" dialog.
  • Prevent crashes with certain chart types (e.g., bubble charts).

New in XL Toolbox 2.66 (Mar 15, 2010)

  • Bug fixes:
  • ANOVA: Non-numbers among the ANOVA values no longer cause Type Mismatch errors.
  • Fixed a problem with complex data layouts that was introduced in version 2.65. This bug could result in a runtime error 458 "Variable uses an Automation type not supported in Visual Basic" (report ID: 4DJBSY, 4E2FWY, 4DJBSY).
  • Export Chart for Publication: Fixed an "object variable not set" error (report ID: 4E2JY3). Fixed another "object variable not set" error that would occur if the function was called with no workbook open (report ID: 4D5HHS).

New in XL Toolbox 2.65 (Mar 1, 2010)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Formula builder: When collecting from two-dimensional input ranges, only the first row or column was complete.
  • Fixed a potential issue where complex data layouts could cause a "subscript out of range" error [RangeToArray procedure].
  • Increased reliability of the updating process by increasing the time that the installer waits for Excel to shut down after sending the WM_QUIT message. This should prevent occasional updating failures.

New in XL Toolbox 2.64 (Feb 22, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • Formula builder: Made it possible again to use two-dimensional data input ranges (i.e., data in table format). Added a (suppressible) confirmation dialog to prevent confusing users who are unfamiliar with how the Formula Builder works.
  • Excel 2000-2003 user interface: The position of the toolbar is now remembered correctly between sessions (RowIndex property).
  • Bug fixes:
  • Transpose wizard: Fixed an Excel crash that could occur after data had been transposed.
  • In certain situations when the user aborted a function, Excel's calculation state might be set to "Manual".
  • Several minor changes to the code and installer.
  • The installer (InnoSetup) was updated to version 5.3.8 (a).

New in XL Toolbox 2.63 (Feb 15, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • Installer: The XL Toolbox can now be installed with minimal "User" rights. Previously, at least "Power User" rights were required; otherwise, setup would fail.
  • Chart export: The Chart Export feature now supports higher-quality rendering of figures, including transparency. Internally, this is accomplished by implementing the Windows operating system's GDI+ engine.
  • NB: Even with GDI+, a "Could not create DIB section" error may still occur when exporting large high-resolution color images, due to a problem with how Windows handles large bitmaps [CreateDIBSection API function]. A remedy for this issue is in the planning stage.
  • Formula builder: Added an option to automatically generate names for the collected cells. This can make formulas more readable and may help when formulas are too long for Excel due to cross-sheet references.
  • Logging: To assist troubleshooting XL Toolbox malfunctions, a logging option was added (&rtarr; Preferences)
  • Components: Upgraded the FreeImage library to version 3.13.0.1.
  • As a side effect of the GDI+ implementation, the splash screen received a facelift.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Correlation: Fixed a typo that prevented Correlation from working at all.
  • Save all charts: When saving charts to a folder that had to be created, the Toolbox would incorrectly report that it failed to create the folder.
  • Automatic backups: In certain situations, the Toolbox would inform the user that cleaning up the backup directory had failed, when in fact it had succeeded.

New in XL Toolbox 2.62 (Jan 25, 2010)

  • Bug fixes and programming code improvements:
  • Chart design: Fixed a problem with automatic series definitions for line and scatter charts.
  • Chart export: Fixed another bug that caused an "Overflow" error
  • Quick save chart: If the option to use IrfanView to save a chart was enabled in the Preferences, but IrfanView was not available on the system, the toolbox would crash
  • Automatic backups: The Toolbox did not keep more than one backup file per day, and it would not clean up old backup files properly if the operating system provides an unsorted list of files in the folder. (Note that automatic backups are not enabled by default; users need to turn on this feature in the Preferences.)
  • User preferences: Made the "Show backup folder" button work with folder names that contain spaces and commas.
  • Undo functionality has been revised, resulting in more robust and somewhat faster performance.
  • Special Paste: Fixed a long-standing bug that caused the Special Paste functions to fail in non-English versions of Excel 2000-2003.
  • Implemented a workaround for crashes that were experienced on one machine where for unknown reasons the Excel application interface was not fully operational ("Method 'DisplayAlerts' of object '_Application' failed.")
  • Improved the code that provides undo functionality for the Toolbox. This should fix some obscure crashes that occur every now and then.
  • Multiple minor improvements.

New in XL Toolbox 2.61 (Jan 21, 2010)

  • Improvements:
  • Chart design: Added a "light gray" color option. (Future versions will allow customization of the basic colors.)
  • Bug fixes:
  • Selection assistant: Fixed an "invalid procedure call or argument" error (report IDs 49SVF5, 4A679R).
  • Chart export for publication: The Toolbox would erroneously reserve too much memory for the bitmap, which could cause overflow errors (error report ID 49MPEU).
  • The Excel 2000-2003 command bar is now properly removed when the XL Toolbox shuts down, and restored upon restart. There should no longer be an "orphaned" command bar if the Toolbox is not running.
  • Corrected a problem with cell range operations involving ranges with multiple areas.

New in XL Toolbox 2.60 (Dec 17, 2009)

  • Excel 2010 Beta compatibility:
  • The XL Toolbox has undergone preliminary testing with the public beta version of Excel 2010. No problems were encountered; in fact, it appeared to be considerably faster than with Excel 2007 running on the same hardware.
  • This version of the Toolbox provides a fix for an Excel 2010 beta bug which prevented switching between open workbooks using Alt+Tab (workbooks were not displayed in the taskbar). This bug occurred on the developer's machine running Excel 2010 Beta build 4536.
  • New features:
  • Linear Regression: The Toolbox can now perform linear regression analysis, including comparison of slopes and intercepts.
  • Selection Assistant Use the new Selection Assistant to select specific rows and columns from a range of cells. The selected cells can be formatted, copied, deleted, etc. One application of this function is easy table formatting, where the Selection Assistant is used to select every other row, and Excel's proper formatting commands are used to highlight the rows.
  • Chart Size (Excel 2000-2003 only): Users of older versions of Excel can now change a chart's size by right-clicking on a chart.
  • Promote/demote chart series: Provides a convenient way to send chart series to the back or bring it to the front. In Excel 2000-2003, this feature is accessible either from the main Toolbox menu, or from the chart series right-click menu. In Excel 2007-2010,
  • Add many chart series: This new helper enables the user to add many series to a chart at once, circumventing a limitation of Excel's own "Select data" dialog. Of note, using this feature it is possible to add many XY scatter plots with individual pairs of X and Y data to the chart.
  • Extend/shrink chart data range: Hold the SHIFT key while clicking the Move Chart Range buttons (left/right arrow buttons) to extend or shrink a chart data range.
  • Improvements:
  • Help pages: The Toolbox can optionally open a web browser and display the help pages on the internet rather than in the offline file.
  • ANOVA: The Toolbox can now test if the ANOVA assumption of equal variance is met. The test employed is a modified version of Levene's test, as described by Glantz & Slinker in "Primer of Applied Regression & Analysis of Variance".
  • Chart design: The Chart Designer has been improved in several ways. An option was added to move tick labels closer to the axes; another option forces all text in the chart to be bold (including tick labels). When clicking the "Auto series" button, format definitions will now be created for all series in the chart.
  • Formula builder: If the Formula Builder detects that an output cell is formatted as "Text", it will apply the "General" number format. This will help users who were confused when the actual formula instead of the formula result shows up in the cells due to the cell formatting.
  • Transpose wizard: If a range of cells is selected, the transpose wizard will now automatically pre-select the "From selection" button.
  • Save all charts: Improved the algorithm for automatic generation of file names for the charts. File names are now saved with lower-case extensions to improve compatibility with Linux systems (and other case-aware operating systems). Added a progress bar.
  • User interface: Revised the XL Toolbox ribbon (Excel 2007-2010) and menus (Excel 2000-2003). To accomodate the new features, certain commands were grouped and placed in submenus. In addition, certain Toolbox commands have been added to right-click context menus. (Note that Excel 2007/2010 do not allow any chart context menus to be changed.) – Internal menu handling was overhauled to facilitate future maintenance of the user interface.
  • Updater: Added a "New folder" button to the download folder picker.
  • Internal functions of the XL Toolbox no longer show up in the list of Excel formulas.
  • Multiple code improvements, several minor cosmetic improvements.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Undo: In certain situations, the Toolbox could crash because the Undo machinery inadvertently activated the hidden Undo workbook. This specifically affected older versions of Excel (2000-2003).
  • Point chart: The Toolbox could crash undo certain conditions when it attempted to determine if the selected chart had error bars (error report ID 48ZRZ5). &emdash; Fixed another bug that could cause a crash during the process of changing the chart's worksheet references.
  • Group allocation: Custom group names were never used.
  • Sheet memory: New worksheets would not be remembered if the sheet memory had reached the maximum number of entries. Corrected the handling of worksheets that contain a pipe symbol ("|") in the worksheet name; these worksheets would not be remembered properly.
  • Error Bars: Smart error bar placement now also works for chart series that are in columns rather than rows.
  • Spread Scatter: Improved performance in non-English versions of Excel.
  • Transpose Wizard: Fixed a "type mismatch" error (report ID 49CPB3).
  • Automatic updates: A few users have reported crashes when a new version was downloaded by the automatic updater (error report IDs: 492O16, 483MAT, and 485ZUE). Implemented better error handling for the updater.
  • An error could occur during certain operations (e.g., applying error bars to an XY scatter or line plot with only one data point) due to the way Visual Basic handles arrays and ranges (in most cases, VBA can copy a range to an array to improve performance, unless the range contains only one cell).

New in XL Toolbox 2.58 (Nov 16, 2009)

  • Improvements:
  • Formula builder: The core functionality of the Formula Builder was rewritten to enable handling of large datasets at higher speed. Added basic outlier detection, an option to automatically collect group names, and to produce fixed cell references ($A$1 instead of A1).
  • Transpose wizard: Changed maximum allowable number of replicates to 1000.
  • 1-Way ANOVA: Added "Repeat" button to the results dialog.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Undo: Sometimes the Toolbox fails to prepare the Undo functionality; this appears to be an Excel-related bug. The Toolbox will now detect if Undo cannot be provided; run-time errors should no longer occur. If the Toolbox fails to prepare Undo, the user is notified and can choose to continue anyway or abort the current operation (error report ID: 47D2WP).
  • One-way ANOVA: The Toolbox crashed after writing the detailed report (it attempted to free the memory of an object twice; error report ID: 47T5OR).
  • Two-way ANOVA: Fixed an issue where certain invalid user input could lead to crashes.

New in XL Toolbox 2.57 (Oct 30, 2009)

  • New feature:
  • Copy page setup: This new feature copies headers, footers, page margins, etc. from the currently active sheet to the other sheets in the workbook. Users no longer need to change the page setup for each sheet separately.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Yet another bug that affected international (non-English) setups was fixed: On systems that do not use the point as decimal separator, the Toolbox would not interpret the version number of Excel correctly. This affected users of Excel 2003 and earlier who would not see the XL Toolbox menu.

New in XL Toolbox 2.56 (Oct 23, 2009)

  • New feature:
  • A minor new feature has been added to the Preferences dialog: Delete all stored settings. (For the developer, this is useful to simulate a "fresh" install of the Toolbox.)
  • Bug fix:
  • An error would still occur when the Toolbox attempted to retrieve stored settings even though none existed (e.g. with a new installation of the Toolbox)

New in XL Toolbox 2.55 (Oct 22, 2009)

  • Improvements:
  • Multi histogram: The "Auto" function now uses Scott's formula to suggest a bin size
  • Bug fixes:
  • The Toolbox could produce an error message if a function was run for the first time and there were no stored user settings (error report ID: 46LTOK).
  • The Toolbox would present options and use functionality specific for Excel 2003 despite running under Excel 2007. (Bug introduced in yesterday's version 2.54.)

New in XL Toolbox 2.54 (Oct 21, 2009)

  • In this release, the handling of numbers with international formats (e.g., with a comma as decimal separator) has been improved in many more functions
  • Improvements:
  • Transpose wizard: The Wizard now accepts standard concentrations with decimals.
  • Updater: Added a preference setting for the update interval.
  • Bugs fixes:
  • Transpose wizard: With certain regional settings, the Transpose wizard would crash.
  • ANOVA: In the results dialog, posthoc comparisons could be incorrectly reported as not significant; on the report sheet, the correct results were given. – The Toolbox would crash if an ANOVA was performed with groups containing less than 2 samples (error report ID ). – A heading for posthoc test would be written to the report, even if no posthoc test had been performed.
  • Updater: Under Windows Vista, the Toolbox would crash when it attempted to restore the autosaved Excel session upon startup after update.

New in XL Toolbox 2.53 (Oct 5, 2009)

  • Improvements:
  • ANOVA: The ANOVA code was overhauled, resulting in improved presentation of results, and allowing the future addition of more posthoc tests.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Statistical reports: When the Windows regional settings were set to a non-English language, Excel would ignore decimal points in numbers and write incorrect values in the report, even though the actual calculation and interpretation of results was correct.
  • Design chart: The Toolbox would crash in Excel 2000-2003 when design was applied to bar graphs by points rather than by series.
  • Preferences: In international versions of Excel, the Spread Scatter page of the Preferences dialog was disabled. – Furthermore, saved settings that contained numbers with decimals were retrieved as whole numbers.
  • Multi historgram: With certain regional settings (e.g., European countries), the creation of dynamic formulas in Excel 2007 would cause a crash.

New in XL Toolbox 2.52 (Sep 28, 2009)

  • The Updater code was changed to be able to handle the new Sourceforge.net download URLs correctly.

New in XL Toolbox 2.51 (Sep 28, 2009)

  • Improvements:
  • Design charts: Gaps and overlap can now be adjusted for bar/column plots.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Design charts: Designing a scatter plot without lines would cause lines to appear.
  • ANOVA results: The Toolbox would crash if the "Textbox" button was clicked when a chart was selected in Excel 2000-2003 (report ID 453OWT).
  • Error bars:
  • The Toolbox did not respect the user preference for error data location.
  • The Toolbox would crash if there were more bar/column plots in the chart than there were error values selected in Interactive Mode.
  • Error bars for line/scatter plots could be white if there were no plot lines.
  • Transpose wizard: The Toolbox crashed if "zero" replicates were entered (report ID 455WRX).
  • Formula builder: The formula builder would always analyze as many data cells as there were group/category cells, even if there were fewer data cells selected.
  • Multi histogram: The Toolbox would crash when attempting to select the output range after the operation was performed (report ID 457D25).
  • In Excel 2000-2003, the Toolbox could crash when it attempted to refresh chart display (report ID 453TWF).

New in XL Toolbox 2.50 (Sep 21, 2009)

  • New features:
  • Design charts: Apply 'professional' design to your graphs with a mouse click. This function was created with the objective to make chart design as straight-forward as possible. Unnecessary settings involving too many mouse clicks were eliminated. You can modify the style of one chart or all charts on your worksheet.
  • Export figures for publication: This powerful new function enables you to arrange graphs as multi-panel figures on a worksheet, and export one or all of them as print-quality multi-panel figures. Supported file types: TIFF, PNG, EMF. Color spaces: Black & white, grayscale, RGB, CMYK.
  • Quick access to file properties: This new feature provides quick access to the file properties (author, title, etc.; all of which are rather hidden in Excel 2007) and the file name and folder. This can be used to quickly copy the file name/folder or other document information to the clipboard, and to open the folder that contains the workbook.
  • Improvements:
  • Transpose wizard: An option was added for automatic standard curve calculation.
  • Updater: The updater was completely overhauled. It can now download and install updates and automatically restart Excel with the previously open workbooks, making the update process much easier and quicker.
  • The Windows common file dialogs are now used throughout, rather than Excel's built-in dialogs which have issues. – Multiple minor code improvements are also implemented in this version.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Two-way ANOVA: Fixed an issue that prevented the ANOVA from being computed when the user clicked the OK button.
  • Error bars: Fixed a bug that caused a crash when the error bars diplayed 'zero' values. (Error report ID: 43GNW3). Fixed another bug that caused a crash if there were not enough error values for every chart series.
  • Sheet list: No more crashes when a sheet is selected in the list if the original workbook is not the active workbook.
  • Spread scatter: Fixed a very specific issue that caused the Spread Scatter function to enter an infinite loop if a bogus maximum spread width value was saved in the registry.
  • ANOVA Reports: Revised the code for report writing, which hopefully fixes a runtime error that was reported as ID: 44ATYN.
  • Implemented a workaround for older versions of Excel (2000-2003) that did not refresh chart display properly.
  • Fixed minor issues with the progress bar.
  • The error handler uses the correct Windows API function to report the available memory now (GlobalMemoryStatusEx instead of GlobalMemoryStatus).

New in XL Toolbox 2.31 (Jul 28, 2009)

  • Improvements:
  • Error bars: Added a new option to set a custom error data offset. Previously, when error data was automatically detected, it was assumed to be separated from the chart data by one row or one column. Now it is possible to change the number of rows or columns that separate the error data from the chart data (including 0). Note however that the auto detection algorithm requires empty cells or cells with different number formats to detect a block of data. Thus, if you set the error data offset to zero, be sure to apply different number formats to the error data and the chart data (e.g., change the number of decimals). This will enable the Toolbox to automatically detect the error data.
  • Multi histogram: As part of the bug-fixing process (see below), the histogram function was extensively revised. Excel 2007 users can now decide whether the Multi Histogram should generate dynamic formulas or static data. (Dynamic formulas require the =COUNTIFS() function which was only introduced in the latest version of Excel.)
  • Transpose wizard: Added an option to determine a row offset for indexed lists. This enables importing of data from certain QPCR programs, e.g. Stratagene's MxPro, where the first entry in the indexed list may contain the reference dye, and the actual data only appears in the second line. -- When pasting table data from the clipboard, it is no longer required that the text on the clipboard contains the word "data". If it does contain the word "data", the number underneath the word is used as the top-left cell of the data table. If it does not contain the word "data", the entire text on the clipboard is considered data. -- Number auto formatting also works with international (non-English) versions of Excel now.
  • Runtime error reporting: Added unique IDs for bug reports to facilitate bug tracking. These codes are generated from the current system time.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Multi histogram: (Hopefully) fixed an "Application or object-defined" runtime error.
  • Error bars: Fixed a bug that caused the Toolbox to crash if a chart referenced data across different worksheets. (As a side effect, this made the whole algorithm much faster too.) Fixed a bug that caused the Toolbox to crash when applying error bars to column or bar charts if the error data contained non-data. Fixed an error in the algorithm that determines error bar directions in line charts.
  • Fixed a cosmetic issue in the updater dialog.

New in XL Toolbox 2.30 (Jul 22, 2009)

  • New features:
  • Transpose wizard: The new transpose wizard can import and rearrange data in tabular formats. It is very useful for data from multiwell plates, as commonly used for PCR, colorimetric assays, etc. This wizard saves a tremendous amount of time that the user would spend moving, copying, and pasting. It can optionally calculate statistics (averages, standard deviations, and standard errors). The wizard can read data in table format or in list format.
  • Improvements:
  • Spread scatter: The Spread Scatter feature has been overhauled. An option has been added to prompt the user every time for the operating mode (changing the source cells vs. unlinking the chart); this can be enabled in the Preferences. Recognition of other charts that draw their X values from the same cells has been improved. Finally, spread Scatter works much faster now; spreading scatter plots with several hundred data points is performed in a few seconds rather than several minutes.
  • Sheet and chart memory: The sheet and chart memory is purged only once per day now, which makes starting up the addin faster, especially on older computers.
  • Annotate Chart: Multi-line comments that contain symbols of significance are now properly recognized as such (the line break is ignored now by the recognition algorithm). This allows multi-labeling of statistically significant bars.
  • Several cosmetic improvements were implemented, the most notable one being the redesigned "About" dialog.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Spread scatter: Spread scatter no longer crashes when the chart's data series is in a row instead of a column. The calculation algorithm has been fixed to better spread the data points.
  • Annotate chart: Applying color to entire line chart series works more reliably now in Excel 2007.
  • Special paste: In Excel 2007, "Transpose Paste Values" would open Excel's "Paste Special" dialog with the right options selected, but would not actually paste anything.
  • Formula builder: Custom formulas should be remembered for future use now.
  • Copy chart format: Border format of plot areas in Excel 2007 is copied correctly now.
  • For version 2.30, many portions of the code were reorganized and tidied up, making future maintenance of the addin much easier. As a side effect, some (marginal) speed improvements have been implemented.

New in XL Toolbox 2.25 (Jul 1, 2009)

  • Fixes several bugs

New in XL Toolbox 2.24 (Jun 25, 2009)

  • Fatures improved Custom Error Bars, Formula Builder, and Copy Chart Format functions, as well as numerous smaller improvements and bug fixes.

New in XL Toolbox 2.23 (Jun 4, 2009)

  • Version 2.23 fixes two bugs introduced in version 2.22.

New in XL Toolbox 2.22 (Jun 4, 2009)

  • Improvements
  • Annotate chart: Added the ability to apply color to whole chart series (including the lines that connect data points); this color is read from the cells that contain the chart series name.
  • Annotate chart: Added the ability to recognize symbols of significance (e.g., asterisks "*") and apply a special format to them.
  • Copy chart format: Added the option to copy the chart title format independently of the title text.
  • Custom error bars: Improved handling of charts that take their data from multiple areas (i.e., non-contiguous regions in your spreadsheet). Note however that Excel versions prior to 2007 are unable to apply error bars from multiple-area cell ranges.
  • Sheet list: The worksheet or chart that is selected in the sheet list dialog is activated. This allows the user to browse through all sheets with the up and down arrow keys.
  • Bug fixes
  • Custom error bars: In specific situations, the Toolbox could crash while trying to locate error bar data (error report filed by J.S. on 3-Jun-09).
  • Custom error bars: The Toolbox used to crash when the graph's data source cells contained computation errors such as DIV/0.
  • Move chart range: Fixed a crash that occurred if no chart was selected and there was exactly one chart present on the active worksheet.
  • Annotate chart: The Reset button was not functional.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause a runtime error when dealing with large spreadsheets with more than 676 columns (Module_Helpers.GetColNotation).
  • Fixed a minor bug in the sheet and chart memory.

New in XL Toolbox 2.21 (May 29, 2009)

  • Version 2.21 features an all-new Chart Annotation function. Use it to quickly highlight any number of points or bars in your graph, and to comfortably add annotations such as asterisks ("*") to denote statistical significance. Version 2.21 also has numerous other improvements and bug fixes.

New in XL Toolbox 2.20 (May 10, 2009)

  • New features
  • A basic 2-Way ANOVA (with and without repeated measures) has been implemented. It can handle differing group sizes, but as yet it cannot handle
  • missing data. Post hoc testing will also be added in the near future.
  • A new runtime error handling mechanism has been implemented that facilitates generating and submitting bug reports, which will help further development of the XL Toolbox.
  • Improvements
  • The Formula Builder can now create formulas on spreadsheets that are different from the preadsheet where the data is. The Formula Builder dialog has been redesigned to make it more user-friendly.
  • Error bars: can now indicate where they prefer to store the error bar data, to the right of or below the chart data on the spreadsheet. Furthermore, error bars can copy the color and thickness of the lines of the corresponding chart series, and for line and scatter plots, the user can indicate whether to have positive or negative error bars or both, or whether to let the Toolbox decide on a case-by-case basis.
  • ANOVA: The user can now easily create a textbox containing the P value by clicking on a button. This textbox can be cut and copied onto a chart.
  • Multiple performance and cosmetic improvements.
  • Bug fixes
  • The XL Toolbox should no longer crash when performing certain chart functions in non-English versions of Excel.
  • The XL Toolbox now handles references to spreadsheet cells in other workbooks correctly.
  • The XL Toolbox version 2.20 also features a splash screen that is displayed for about 2 seconds directly after startup. The user can start working while the splash screen is displayed; moving the mouse over it within 2 seconds will dismiss the splash screen; and it can be turned off in the Preferences dialog.

New in XL Toolbox 2.14 (May 7, 2009)

  • Improvements:
  • The Save All Charts function no longer exports charts that have been hidden by the user.
  • Watermarks are now positioned behind the other elements so that it is easier to select and edit chart elements.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Working with chart sheets no longer produces errors that occurred due to a bug in the Undo function.
  • On some machines, the XL Toolbox would complain about a "missing object" during startup.
  • When Saving All Charts using partial chart captions after a delimiter as file names, the file name is correctly constructed now.