About Debra D’s Blog
I’m Debra Dalgleish, owner/author of the Contextures Excel website, Contextures Blog and Excel Pivot Tables blog.
As an Excel expert, I’m honoured to have received the Excel MVP award from Microsoft, every year since 2001, in recognition of my contributions to the Excel technical community.
And because I love spreadsheets, I founded Spreadsheet Day in 2010, and you can visit my Spreadsheet Day blog to learn more about it!
Here on my Debra D’s Blog, I share tips, techniques and tools that help me run my online business.
Early Years in Business
Before building my Excel websites, I worked at York University in Toronto, for nine years. Finally, I got tired of long commutes, and took the plunge into self-employment.
My earliest projects were in word processing — everything from simple sales flyers, to complex templates, and programming.
My first computer was one of the original Macintosh machines, and I used MacWrite, then moved up to Microsoft Word a bit later. The first spreadsheet program that I used was MultiPlan and later, of course, I started using Excel.
For several years, I also did corporate computer training for Microsoft Office and Windows. Teaching was hard work, but great fun, and a good mental challenge, thanks to the students’ interesting questions.
Computer Consulting
As my business grew, I gradually moved into computer consulting, helping clients on-site and remotely. Some projects were quick and easy solutions to straight-forward problems. Other projects were long-term development of complex Excel workbooks and Access databases.
One client needed help with a website, so I learned how to do that too — first with PageMill, and later with DreamWeaver and WordPress.
Since 2000, I’ve been running my Contextures web site, and my Contextures Blog and Pivot Tables blog started in 2008.
Excel Websites
Creating content for my Excel websites takes up most of my time now — you’ll find a vast collection of Excel tips, tutorials, sample files and videos on those sites.
My websites bring in revenue from advertising, so that’s another skill that I’ve had to learn — it’s important to keep traffic going to my sites, and keep a good reputation.
Debra Dalgleish Books
As an Excel expert, I was asked o write three books on Excel pivot tables, that were published by Apress.
Writing a book is an exhausting, but rewarding experience (in a non-monetary way). At one point, I was working on two books at the same time!
Spreadsheet Day Founder
Another thing I’m proud of, is being the founder of Spreadsheet Day.
In early 2010, I decided that we needed a day to celebrate spreadsheets, like Excel. Next, after a few polls and posts on my Contextures blog, I selected October 17th as the perfect date for an annual celebration. That’s the date that VisiCalc was first released, back in 1979.
You can visit my Spreadsheet Day blog to learn more about it!
In December 2025, I was honoured to be included, as Spreadsheet Day founder, in the Microsoft Excel Wall of Fame, at the Microsoft Excel World Championships, held in Las Vegas.
- Top row: Charles Simonyi, Sumit Chauhan, Brian Jones, and Debra Dalgleish.
- Bottom row: Past and current Excel World Champions – Andrew Ngai (Australia), Michael Jarman (Canada), and Diarmuid Early (Ireland),
Excel-Related Websites
I have two more blogs where I post Excel-related content:
What’s For Supper: Visit my food blog for weekly menus, created in Excel, along with recipes and kitchen tips and gadgets.
Excel Humour: Visit my Excel Theatre Blog for Excel humour, Excel videos, and spreadsheet tip.
Social Media
If you use social media, you can find me on the following sites:
– Debra Dalgleish – posts about Excel and working life
YouTube
– Debra D Channel – a few videos for my Debra D blog
– Contextures Channel – hundreds of Excel videos for my main website
Twitter (X)
– Debra Dalgleish – tweets from my personal account
– Contextures – tweets from my business account
– Contextures – Excel posts on my Contextures Facebook page
– Debra Dalgleish – public posts on my personal Facebook page