Contextures

About Contextures

Debra DalgleishI'm Debra Dalgleish, the founder of Contextures, located near Toronto, Canada. To contact Contextures Inc., please see the options listed below.

Self-employed since 1985, I've built hundreds of complex Excel, Word, and Access solutions for my clients, to automate their tasks, and save them time and money. I've listed some of my Excel projects below, so you can see the type of work that I did for my clients.

No longer consulting, I now focus on creating Excel solutions to share on this Contextures website, which I started on November 15, 2000. You'll find hundreds of free tutorials, sample files, and videos here, and I hope they help you!

I'm also the founder of Spreadsheet Day, an annual event that started in 2010, and we celebrate every October 17th.

 

Client Excel Projects

Here are a few of the Excel-based projects that I've completed for my clients, over the years.

The companies that I assisted ranged from small local businesses, to large national companies, here in Canada, and major international corporations, with offices in Canada. My clients were in a wide range of businesses, including health services, insurance, banking, manufacturing, transportation, and waste management.

Working on my clients' Excel projects gave me real-world problems to solve, and helped me continuously improve my Excel skills. I successfully built quick, efficient reporting tools for my clients, with simple data entry options, reliable output, and low maintenance.

Most of these Excel tools and workbooks are still being used, many years, and many versions of Excel, later.

  • Office Equipment Pricing Tool
  • Financial Reporting Dashboard
  • Health & Safety Checklists
  • Manufacturing Cost Calculator
  • Employee Bonus Calculations
  • Pharma Sales Report Macros
  • Marketing Spend Analysis
  • Food Sales Costing Reports
  • Material Costing Macros
  • Compensation Analysis Tools
  • Transportation Cost Calculator

 

Microsoft MVP Award

Debra DalgleishIn addition to my consulting work, and building my Contextures website, I've also spent countless hours answering Excel questions online.

In the "good old days", there were Excel newsgroups, hosted on Microsoft servers, and you could ask your Excel qustions there. People from all around the world participated in those newsgroups, and you could get help 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week!

The first Excel question that I answered in the newsgroups was in February 2001, and I kept going until they shut down those newsgroups in 2010. Over those years, I answered about 20,000 questions, and learned so much from the other newsgroup participants.

In September 2001, I was thrilled to receive an Excel MVP award from Microsoft, in recognition of my contributions to the technical community. And I'm honoured to have received another MVP award, every year since 2001, for my continued contributions. .

In the photos below, you can see a few MVP events that I have attended, at the Microsoft headquarters near Seattle, Washington. It was an amazing experience every time - meeting so many legendary Excel experts, and discussing upcoming features with Microsoft's Excel team.

collage

 

Author - Excel Pivot Table Books

Because of my Excel contributions in the Microsoft newsgroups, I was contacted by Apress publishing company, and asked to submit a Pivot Table book proposal, which was accepted. My book, Excel Pivot Table Recipes, was published in 2005, and shows solutions for Pivot Table problems in Excel 2003.

A couple of years later, I was asked to write an updated version of my book, Excel 2007 Pivot Table Recipes, as well as a third book - Beginning Pivot Tables in Excel 2007.

NOTE: Because the content is out of date, these books are no longer available on the Apress site, or on Amazon.

pivot table recipes 2003  pivot table recipes 2007  beginning pivot table recipes

Technical Support

Excel Questions: No technical support is provided for the sample files or tutorials on this site. If you have Excel questions, the best place to ask for help is in one of the online Excel forums.

I recommend these two forums, which are both very active, and provide great (and free) Excel help:

Products: If you need technical support for a previous Contextures product purchase, please send an email to Debra Dalgleish -- ddalgleish @contextures.com -- (remove the space)

Errors: To report errors in the Contextures sample files, or on any of the tutorial pages, please send an email to Debra Dalgleish -- ddalgleish @contextures.com -- (remove the space)

Contextures Information

  • Contact: Debra Dalgleish - dsd @contextures.com OR ddalgleish @contextures.com
  • Address: 7334 Aspen Ave., Mississauga, ON, Canada L5N 6P2
  • My contextures.com website was first registered on November 15, 2000
  • Domain registration information is available in the WHOIS database.
  • Contextures RSS Feed
  • As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Privacy Policy

Social Media

To follow me on social media, go to one of these accounts.

-- Contextures on YouTube - hundreds of Excel videos on YouTube

-- Contextures on Twitter - tweets from my Contextures account

-- Debra on Twitter - tweets from my personal account

-- Debra on Mastodon - posts about Excel and other topics

-- Contextures on Facebook - Excel posts on my Contextures Facebook page

My Blogs

To see more Excel and business-related articles, you can visit my other blogs:

-- Contextures Blog - Excel tips and tutorials

-- Pivot Table Blog - Excel pivot table tips and tutorials

-- Debra's Blog - tips for running an online business - gadgets, programs, productivity

-- Spreadsheet Day blog - annual event (October 17th) that I founded in 2010

 

Last updated: November 18, 2022 10:15 AM