Clean Charts is installed by running the Clean Charts Installer.xls file after unpacking the contents of the download to a local directory. Excel users need to make sure that macros are turned on which can be done with a click in Excel 2010. Users of previous versions of Excel need to go to Tools > Macro > Security and select medium security level.

The template displays options to install Clean Charts as an add-in, uninstall a previously installed version of the add-in or try Clean Charts on the active worksheet.

Clean Charts displays an options window whenever it is activated from within Excel. All cleaning options are automatically selected with the option to remove those that are not needed or wanted.

• Fix font sizes
• Fix axis labels and scaling
• Fix 3D
• Fix colors
• Fix chart junk

Take a look at the chart before and after optimization below.

The result is a cleaner, professional looking chart. The Excel add-in is added either to the Format menu or the Add-Ins menu if Excel 2010 is used. It offers options to clean all charts that are open or only a specific chart that is displayed on the screen.

Clean Charts can turn unprofessional looking Excel charts into professional ones. Its batch mode, which allows the conversion of multiple charts at once, ensures that the conversion does not need to become a tedious process.

The Excel add-in sometimes has difficulties processing complex charts. It is a good idea to have a backup copy of a document ready just in case even though the undo function should be enough to return to the old chart view if something did not turn out right.

Clean Charts is compatible with Excel 2010, 2007 and 2003. It can be downloaded from the developer website. The Excel add-on displays an error message when installed under Excel 2010. It does however install just fine in the add-ins directory.(via)

The Trim Spaces add-in for Microsoft Excel has been designed to clean spaces from data that is located in an Microsoft Excel file. To be more precise: The Excel add-in will remove trailing or leading spaces in the data and leave the other spaces in their places.

All it takes to remove spaces from Excel cells is to select the cells that should be processed by the add-in and to click on the run button afterwards. This will automatically process all select cells and remove leading and trailing spaces from these cells. A report is generated in the end that is listing the number of processed cells and the cells that have been trimmed.

The Trim Spaces add-in for Microsoft Excel is compatible with the last four major released of Microsoft Excel (that is Excel 2007, Excel 2003, Excel XP (2002) and Excel 2000).

The Excel add-in provides automatic backups of Excel spreadsheets. The interval of each automatic backup, the destination folder, the days the backups will be kept and the maximum number of backups can be defined when the add-in is loaded and activated in Microsoft Excel.

The Excel Autobackup add-in has to be activated before it can be used. To do that a user would have to click on the Office ribbon and select Excel Options at the bottom of the menu. There he would click on the Add-ins menu entry on the left side and the button Go at the bottom the the add-ins menu once it is displayed.

This opens a list of available add-ins and a browse button among others on the right side. The user would then click on Browse and select the autobackup.xla file on the computer’s hard drive. This loads and activates the plugin. After clicking OK in the menu the previously described settings can be changed and the add-in will start to automatically backup Excel spreadsheets right away.

The backup will be named after the original filename with an additional number to differentiate the backups.