{"id":4,"date":"2009-10-02T19:46:28","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T02:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debradalgleish.com\/blog\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:17:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T19:17:45","slug":"about-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/debradalgleish.com\/blog\/about-2\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

About Debra D’s Blog<\/h3>\n

I’m Debra Dalgleish, owner\/author of the Contextures Excel website<\/a>, Contextures Blog<\/a> and Excel Pivot Tables blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As an Excel expert, I’m honoured to have received the Excel MVP award from Microsoft<\/a>, every year since 2001, in recognition of my contributions to the Excel technical community.<\/p>\n

And because I love spreadsheets, I founded Spreadsheet Day in 2010, and you can visit my Spreadsheet Day blog<\/a> to learn more about it!<\/p>\n

Here on my Debra D’s Blog, I share tips, techniques and tools that help me run my online business.<\/p>\n

Early Years in Business<\/h3>\n

\"DebraBefore 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.<\/p>\n

My earliest projects were in word processing — everything from simple sales flyers, to complex templates, and programming.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> and later, of course, I started using Excel.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Computer Consulting<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

One client needed help with a website, so I learned how to do that too — first with PageMill, and later with DreamWeaver and WordPress.<\/p>\n

Since 2000, I’ve been running my Contextures web site, and my Contextures Blog and Pivot Tables blog started in 2008.<\/p>\n

Excel Websites<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Debra Dalgleish Books<\/h3>\n

As an Excel expert, I was asked o write three books on Excel pivot tables<\/a>, that were published by Apress.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

\"Pivot
Pivot Table books by Debra Dalgleish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Spreadsheet Day Founder<\/h3>\n

Another thing I’m proud of, is being the founder of Spreadsheet Day.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

You can visit my Spreadsheet Day blog<\/a> to learn more about it!<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n