Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By : David Ringstrom
Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By: David Ringstrom

Overview of this book

David Ringstrom coined the phrase “Either you work Excel, or it works you!” after observing how many users carry out tasks inefficiently. In this book, you’ll learn how to get more done with less effort. This book will enable you to create resilient spreadsheets that are easy for others to use as well, while incorporating spreadsheet disaster preparedness techniques. The time-saving techniques covered in the book include creating custom shortcuts and icons to streamline repetitive tasks, as well as automating them with features such as Tables and Custom Views. You’ll see how Conditional Formatting enables you to apply colors, Cell icons, and other formatting on-demand as your data changes. You’ll be empowered to protect the integrity of spreadsheets and increase usability by implementing internal controls, and understand how to solve problems with What-If Analysis features. In addition, you’ll master new features and functions such as XLOOKUP, Dynamic Array functions, LET and LAMBDA, and Power Query, while learning how to leverage shortcuts and nuances in Excel. By the end of this book, you’ll have a broader awareness of how to avoid pitfalls in Excel. You’ll be empowered to work more effectively in Excel, having gained a deeper understanding of the frustrating oddities that can arise daily in Excel.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Improving Accessibility
6
Part 2:Spreadsheet Interactivity and Automation
12
Part 3: Data Analysis

Automating filtering

The Custom Views feature can apply one or more filters at once, rather than you having to do so individually. First, we’ll briefly look at the Filter command. Many Excel users are familiar with the Sort command, which physically rearranges data within a list. Conversely, the Filter feature displays a subset of information in a list, thus hiding rows with data that doesn’t match the filter.

Let’s filter the list shown in Figure 8.12 for beaches greater than 100 kilometers in length:

  1. Activate the Filtering worksheet of this chapter’s example workbook and select any cell within the list.

Tip

There are only a few instances in Excel where it’s necessary to select an entire list before filtering, such as when a list contains blank rows or blank columns. Another instance that comes to mind is when a list contains three or more header rows. In that case, you’ll want to select from the last header row down through...