Flash Cards for Microsoft Excel
There are a multitude of flash card programs out there. I wanted something very simple to use, especially with regard to editing and creating the questions. In my quick search, I didn't find one that was as simple as what I was looking for, thus I created my own.
This uses a macro which is a program that is embedded in the Excel file. You will need to enable macros for this program to run. See below for instructions on how to enable macros.
Basic operation
Simply enter the question into a cell in the questions column and the answer into the corresponding cell in the answer column of the Question to Quiz sheet. Click on the Run Quiz button on the Settings and Control sheet to run the quiz.
Storing a bank of questions
There are times when you may just want to review a subset of the total questions that you might have. The Question Bank sheet allows you to store all of your questions and only copy and paste the questions and answers that you want to be quizzed on into Questions to Quiz sheet. You can add extra columns to the Question Bank and then use the built in sorting and filtering tools in Excel to help select which questions to copy and paste into the Questions to Quiz sheet. The quiz macro only looks at the question and answers in columns A and B and uses column C of the Questions to Quiz sheet to track whether or not the question has been asked. Thus, only paste the questions and answers into the Questions to Quiz sheet and do not paste any of the extra columns that you may have created.
Options
I have an option so that you can select whether to ask the question sequentially or in a random order. I have designed the program so that you can go through the questions and answers by simply using the Enter key. However, you can select Cancel to end the program. When answering a question, you can select No (No I didn't know the answer). If you select No, the program will ask you again until you answer Yes.
Exporting to other programs
As I mentioned before, there are a multitude of flash card programs. For example, there are some that allow you to put flash cards on your iPod, PDA, or Phone as well as other applications for your computer. Many of these programs allow import of .csv (comma seperated value) files. Simply save the Question Bank sheet as .csv from Excel and import it into one of these other programs.
Files
These files are not encumbered in any way.
This is a blank version. Enter your own data:
This is an example to give you an idea of how to use the program:
To enable Excel macros:
Microsoft Office macros are small embedded programs. The problem is that there have been cases where instead of the macro being something cool and useful, it has contained malicious code. Changing the settings to the following suggestions will allow you to decide on a case by case basis whether you want to run a macro when you open an Excel file.
Excel 2003 and probably earlier versions
Use: Tools->Macros->Security. Changing the setting to medium will cause Excel to ask you if you want to run the macro when you open the file.
Excel 2007
Microsoft has a description at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP100969191033.aspx
However, here is my brief description. Get to the Macro settings by selecting Macro Security on the Developer tab.
Next, select the desired setting. I suggest the setting below. It will allow you to enable macros on a case by case basis.
When you open the file, you will see a security warning. Click on Options to enable the macro.
