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16_574272 ch14.qxd  10/1/04  10:40 PM  Page 77
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                                                                                 Warnings to Make Them Wary
                                                                        After adding an error alert message, whenever the
                                                                        user tries to enter something outside the bounds set
                                                                        by the cell’s data validation settings, Excels beeps at
                                                                        them and then displays your custom error alert dia-
                                                                        log box. Figure 14-9 shows you how the custom error
                                                                        alert dialog box (defined in Figure 14-8) appears
                                                                        when you try to enter an invalid number (in this
                                                                        case, any whole number less than 5 or greater than
                                                                        15 or any decimal number at all). When this Stop
                                                                        type of error alert appears, your users have two
                                                                        choices:

                                                                             Click Retry to have another go at entering the
                                                                             data (in hopes that the user can get it right this
                                                                             time).
                                                                             Click Cancel to clear the aberrant entry from the
                                                                             cell (and thus forget about the whole thing).
                      • Figure 14-8: Adding a warning message that appears in
                                 place of the standard alert dialog box.

                             Don’t select the Warning or Information type
                             of error alert message unless you want it to be
                             possible for your users to sidestep the valida-
                             tion settings and enter invalid data in the cell.
                             (The Warning type allows this with its Yes but-
                             ton and the Information type with its OK but-  • Figure 14-9: Custom alert dialog box that appears when
                             ton.) Only the default Stop type prevents users       the user attempts to make an invalid entry.
                             from going ahead and making invalid entries
                             in the cell.
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