Tip #96 - Excel Filtering

100 Computer Tips in 100 Days

Tip #96 - Excel Filtering

When working with lists in Excel it’s sometimes necessary to view a subset of the list. I have a list of members in an organization that I keep in alphabetical order. There are times that I would like to view only the people who joined in a particular year or who have been members 10 or more years. To hide all of the rows that don’t meet my criteria I use the Filter feature in Excel.

You can access Filtering from the Home tab, Editing group or from the Data tab, Sort & Filter group. When you turn filtering on from either of these locations, you will see the program puts a pull down menu at the top of each column. When you click on these you will see the menu has been populated with all of the unique values in the column. Using the check boxes you can select the values you are looking for and then click OK. Repeat this process until you are viewing only the records you need.

Keep in mind that using these filters, you are able to copy and paste only the visible records. I often use this technique when I want to email a specific group of people. After selecting the email addresses and copying them I switch to Outlook and paste the names in the Bcc box.

Note that on the Filtering pull down menus, in addition to the unique data listed at the bottom, there are options for sorting the records. I often save my files with the Filters turned on because I use them so often.

Remember when you’re setting up your lists, it is important that your lists do not have any blank columns or blank rows. It’s OK if some of the cells don’t have data but keep the rows and columns consecutive so that Excel recognizes contiguous data.

Happy Computing!

Diane

Don't forget to click the Subscribe to 100 Computer Tips in 100 Days via email link on the right side of the screen so you get email alerts when Diane adds a new post.

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Diane McKeever, the writer of 100 Computer Tips in 100 Days, by subscribing to her Facebook posts or visiting her web page, www.dianemckeever.com .