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228 Eliminating Errors with Text to Speech
To set this up in the 2013 Sales worksheet, I followed these three steps:
✦ Selected the cell range (D4:D15) with monthly sales data for the year.
✦ Opened the Data Validation dialog box (Alt+AVV) and then on the Settings tab selected Decimal in the Allow drop-down list and Greater Than in the Data drop-down list, and entered 50000 in the Minimum text box before clicking OK.
✦ Chose the Circle Invalid Data option from the Data Validation button’s drop-down menu on the Data tab. (You can also press Alt+AVI.)
To remove the circles from the cells marked as invalid, choose the Clear Validation Circles option from the Data Validation button’s drop-down menu or press Alt+AVR. To clear the validation settings from the cells, select the range and then open the Data Validation dialog box and click its Clear All button before you click OK.
Eliminating Errors with Text to Speech
Find and Replace is a great tool for eliminating errors that you’ve flagged in the worksheet. Likewise, the Spell Check feature is great for eliminating input errors that result from typos. Unfortunately, neither of these features can help you to identify data input errors that result from actions, such as mistyping the entry (without misspelling it) or transposing one entry with another.
The only way that you can flag and then correct these errors is by checking and verifying the accuracy of each and every data entry in the worksheet. Usually, you do this by checking the columns and rows of data in a spread- sheet against the original documents from which you generated the spread- sheet. Excel’s Text to Speech feature can help in this checking by reading aloud each entry that’s been made in a selected range of cells or data table within the worksheet. As the data entries are read aloud, you can then verify their accuracy against documents used in the original data entry.
The Text to Speech translation feature requires no prior training or special microphones: All that’s required is a pair of speakers or headphones con- nected to your computer.
Unfortunately, the various Text to Speech command buttons are not avail- able from any of the tabs on the Ribbon. The only way to access them is by adding their command buttons either as custom buttons on the Quick Access toolbar or to a custom tab on the Ribbon. Figure 3-20 shows the Quick Access toolbar on my copy of Excel 2013 after I’ve added the Speak Cells, Speak Cells - Stop Speaking Cells, and Speak Cells on Enter buttons needed to check cell entries by having them read aloud.