Tooltips or Comment looking up a reference

[JonBoy]

Hi all, First port here.

Sorry for the vague title but I am unsure what the right words to us
for my question are, hence it is difficult for me to search for
solution to.

What I am basically trying to do, is enter an abbreviation or initial
into a spreadsheet and have the ability to then hover over that cel
and it will tell me in a tooltip/comment what that abbreviation stand
for...simply so that the spreadsheet doesnt get too large with all th
full descriptions.

I know how to create a comment, but what I want to achieve is bein
able to just enter the abbr. and excel will automatically add th
comment if it recognises that the abbr. has been defined in a lis
somewhere else.

eg

if i have a list on another sheet :

abc = alphabet

then somehow set it up so that whenever i enter 'abc' into any cell,
comment is automatically generated that displays the word 'alphabet'
but abc remains the displayed bit in the cell.

Or if someone knows of another way to achieve the same goal...i.e. b
able to enter abbr.s and keep them displayed to save space, but hav
the ability to hover to read what they mean.

Many thanks in advance.

Jo

 

[davesexcel]

did you try right clicking on the cell and selecting cell contents?

 

[davesexcel]

Here is a site with a crazy amount of info on cell comments using VBA
maybe you will be able to get some info out of it, it also has related
links

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/ccomment.htm

 

[JonBoy]

Thanks Dave!

Looking at it now...

 

[JonBoy]

hmmmm

i think this is over my head...never played with functions
before...

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

Instead of using popup comments, you could display the description in a
text box at the top of the worksheet. There's an example here:

http://www.contextures.com/excelfiles.html

Under Comments, look for 'Display Comment Text'