Using Microsoft Excel® as a Laboratory Data Management Tool

Excel can be used by scientists for managing data management troubles ranging from simple tasks such as devising a system to store printouts of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) chromatograms and link them to entries in one's notebook to complicated scenarios such as creating a data storage and visualization application for a high-throughput workflow that operates 24 h a day. There is an underappreciation for the wide diversity of data management tasks that can be handled by Excel and VBA. This article describes Excel's utility as a laboratory data management tool. Keywords: excel; laboratory data management tool; data management; visual basic for applications (VBA); macro