Software Africa Newsletter - December 2024

Main Article ~ Online Business Tip ~ Excel Tip ~ Training Tip

Rick's Editorial:

Welcome. We wish you all the very best for the Season –and safe travelling, if you are travelling. A very big thank you for your support during the year!  You have been loyal customers and friends.

We wish you and your loved ones a happy, safe, and festive season. And a prosperous 2025!

Our offices will be closed on all the upcoming public holidays. We will also officially be closed from Saturday 21 December to Wednesday 1 January, but you will be able to find us by phone and (more slowly than usual) on email, if you have a problem.

For the Festive Season, we have –somewhere in the newsletter– valuable free gifts you can download.

Autodesk prices increase early in January. Might this be a good time to renew your AutoCAD early?

In the latest Excel Tip, we have an example of conditional formatting, changing the appearance of a cell depending on its contents.

Excel Macros and Excel for Engineers are ready for you as self-paced online courses.

Computius always has something profound to add... 

Autodesk Price Increases as of 7 January 2025

Autodesk says there will be a Suggested Retail Price increase in South Africa on 7 January 2025. These changes are:

• Most annual and multi-year new seat subscriptions will increase in price by approximately 4%-6%.
• Most multi-year subscription renewals will increase in price by approximately 4%-6%.
• Most annual subscription renewals will increase in price by approximately 9%-11%.

Multi-year subscriptions will continue receive a renewal discount of 5% over the new seat pricing, but Annual subscriptions will now cost the same as a new seat.  Hence, if you do not renew on time, you might as well rather buy a new package and score the days for which you were unable to use your package.  Autodesk's logic in this escapes us, as do many of the doings of Autodesk.

There will also be a biennial (once every two years) M2S price increase of around 5% expected on 7 May 2025.

The Versatile Systeme.io – used for This Newsletter

Trusted by 300,000+ Entrepreneurs to Automate their marketing –Get your FREE Account!

Systeme,io replaces ClickFunnels, Kartra, Builderall, and more!

"Everything is integrated into a single platform, making it simpler for you to get the job done. Automating many of your tedious or repetitive operations is made easy by the marketing automation options on systeme.io"- Elijah D. | Online Course Creator:

Take a look at systeme.io.

On-Line Business Tip #91 – Reopen the Browser Tab You Accidentally Closed

If you close a web browser tab by mistake, you can often bring it back by simply pressing Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T on a Mac).

If you shut down the computer with various tabs open in the web browser, and when you restart, the browser has forgotten which tabs you had open, try this same trick.  If it doesn't work, try Ctrl+H or Ctrl+Shift+H.  This seems to work better in Brave than in Google Chrome.

(Tip inspired by this website)

The Excel for Engineers Online Course is Live

The Excel for Engineers course is on our online platform, systeme.io.  It has video in most lessons,  This is the most complete one we have produced. There are extra sample files and material we don't have time for on the regular two-day live course.

Why should you take the Excel for Engineers course?

The course is chock-full of benefits for any Excel user in a technical field.  Using 19 pre-built spreadsheets (yours to keep), we comprehensively cover using Excel as an Engineering and Scientific Tool.

Do it at your own pace at times that suit you.  Take half an hour a day and complete it in a month.  Spend an hour a day and finish it in two weeks.  Or dedicate two days –a weekend, perhaps?– and crack the whole course.  Then revise until your memory is solid.

Sign Up Now and get three Free Bonuses.

Excel Tip #238 – Problem: Conditional Formatting

In our previous tip, the customer had a spreadsheet where various issues were rated by severity as H (High), M (Medium), or L (Low)  They wanted a pie chart where the number of issues at each level could be displayed.  The relevant part of the spreadsheet looked like this:

How were the varying background colours done?  With conditional formatting!  Here's how:

1. Select the cells to format (in this case, B8:B11).
2. From the Home ribbon, in the Styles group, click the Conditional Formatting drop-down and choose New Rule.
3. Select a rule type: Format only cells that contain
4. Edit the rule description: Format only cells with: Specific text, containing: H
5. Format: Font, color = white; Fill, background color = red, OK.
6. Repeat with M: font bold, color white, background orange.
7. Repeat with L: font bold, color white, background green.
8. The result, viewed with the Home ribbon, Styles group, Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules should look like this:

Next time: How to Create the drop-down list on the right!

Start 2025 with a Timesaving New Skill!

Why not do the Excel Macros online course over the Holidays?  Learn to do repetitive work in a flash, instead of repeating the same boring stuff by hand.  Save hours not working late, and spend more time with your family...  The Software Africa Quick 'n Easy Turbo-Start Excel Macros course is online.  Take it now and avoid any price rise in the New Year.

Festive Presents for you: Automated Spreadsheets:

Our website has free spreadsheets for you:

• Bank Account Reconciliation,
• Water and Electricity Meter Readings,
• Vehicle Fuel Consumption,
• Rainfall and Raingauge readings,
• a Quotation System (with Bill of Materials),
• ALV(9) South African Vehicle Licence Renewal Form (though these days you can do it online at eNaTIS),
• Toastmasters Online Speech Contest Certificate PDF Exporter,,
• Toastmasters In-Person Speech Contest Certificate Printer,
• John Demartini Fast Savings Calculator, and even
• a Mattress Turning Schedule, mind you!

Enjoy your presents!  Want automated spreadsheets like those?  We can write them for you.

Computius Say:

Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic?

Remember:  We can make your business run better by::

• Training your company live online, or live in-house, or via a self-paced online course.  We train on Excel, Word, Access, and Windows (all levels from beginners to Programming).
• Automating your in-house processes with Excel macros, a custom program or database.
• Promoting your corporate image with a set of templates on Microsoft Word or Excel, linked to your address list.
• Speeding up your processes by linking to your database or spreadsheet.
• Solving your QuickBooks, Microsoft Access, Excel, Word, Visual Basic, and PowerPoint problems.
• Supplying software: We re-sell and support various accounting, timesheet, scheduling, and productivity programs.
• Selling world-class programs for Engineering: progeCAD, and Autodesk products like AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Revit LT Suite and Maya LT.
• We program, sell, and support dotPLOT, the de facto standard in sub-Saharan Africa for the Civil Engineering Geologist.

All the Best from
Communication in Action cc trading as Software Africa

"Empowering African Business with standard and custom PC programs, databases, and templates using Microsoft technologies"

Reg.  2009/007863/23 ~ VAT No 4500104387 ~ 126 Kelvin Drive, Morningside Manor, Sandton, 2191 South Africa.

Disclosure:  Some links we share might be affiliate links we promote in return for a commission.  We only promote things we've actually tried and think could be great for you too.