SPACEEXCEL: Filter

Filter

Filter your Excel data if you only want to display records that meet certain criteria.

1. Click any single cell inside a data set.

2. On the Data tab, click Filter.

Arrows in the column headers appear.

3. Click the arrow next to Country.

4. Click on Select All to clear all the check boxes, and click the check box next to USA.

5. Click OK.

Result. Excel only displays the sales in the USA.

6. Click the arrow next to Quarter.

7. Click on Select All to clear all the check boxes, and click the check box next to Qtr 4.

8. Click OK.

Result. Excel only displays the sales in the USA in Qtr 4.

9. To remove the filter, on the Data tab, click Clear. To remove the filter and the arrows, click Filter.

Number and Text Filters

Number Filter | Text Filter

This example teaches you how to apply a number filter and a text filter to only display records that meet certain criteria.

1. Click any single cell inside a data set.

2. On the Data tab, click Filter.

Arrows in the column headers appear.

Number Filter

To apply a number filter, execute the following steps.

3. Click the arrow next to Sales.

4. Click Number Filters (this option is available because the Sales column contains numeric data) and select Greater Than from the list.

5. Enter 10,000 and click OK.

Result. Excel only displays the records where Sales is greater than $10,000.

Note: you can also display records equal to a value, less than a value, between two values, the top x records, records that are above average, etc. The sky is the limit!

Text Filter

To apply a text filter, execute the following steps.

3. Click the arrow next to Last Name.

4. Click Text Filters (this option is available because the Last Name column contains text data) and select Equals from the list.

5. Enter ?m* and click OK.

Note: A question mark (?) matches exactly one character. An asterisk (*) matches a series of zero or more characters.

Result. Excel only displays the records where the second character of Last Name equals m.

Date Filters

This example teaches you how to apply a date filter to only display records that meet certain criteria.

1. Click any single cell inside a data set.

2. On the Data tab, click Filter.

Arrows in the column headers appear.

3. Click the arrow next to Date.

4. Click on Select All to clear all the check boxes, click the + sign next to 2012, and click the check box next to January.

5. Click OK.

Result. Excel only displays the sales in 2012, in January.

6. Click the arrow next to Date.

7. Click on Select All to select all the check boxes.

8. Click Date Filters (this option is available because the Date column contains dates) and select Last Month from the list.

Result. Excel only displays the sales of last month.

Note: this date filter and many other date filters depend on today's date.

Advanced Filter

And Criteria | Or Criteria | Formula as Criteria

This example teaches you how to apply an advanced filter in Excel to only display records that meet complex criteria.

When you use the Advanced Filter, you need to enter the criteria on the worksheet. Create a Criteria range (blue border below for illustration only) above your data set. Use the same column headers. Be sure there's at least one blank row between your Criteria range and data set.

And Criteria

To display the sales in the USA and in Qtr 4, execute the following steps.

1. Enter the criteria shown below on the worksheet.

2. Click any single cell inside the data set.

3. On the Data tab, in the Sort & Filter group, click Advanced.

4. Click in the Criteria range box and select the range A1:D2 (blue).

5. Click OK.

Notice the options to copy your filtered data set to another location and display unique records only (if your data set contains duplicates).

Result.

No rocket science so far. We can achieve the same result with the normal filter. We need the Advanced Filter for Or criteria.

Or Criteria

To display the sales in the USA in Qtr 4 or in the UK in Qtr 1, execute the following steps.

6. Enter the criteria shown below on the worksheet.

7. On the Data tab, click Advanced, and adjust the Criteria range to range A1:D3 (blue).

8. Click OK.

Result.

Formula as Criteria

To display the sales in the USA in Qtr 4 greater than $10.000 or in the UK in Qtr 1, execute the following steps.

9. Enter the criteria (+formula) shown below on the worksheet.

10. On the Data tab, click Advanced, and adjust the Criteria range to range A1:E3 (blue).

11. Click OK.

Result.

Note: always place a formula in a new column. Do not use a column label or use a column label that is not in your data set. Create a relative reference to the first cell in the column (B6). The formula must evaluate to TRUE or FALSE.

Data Form

The data form in Excel allows you to add, edit and delete records (rows) and display only those records that meet certain criteria. Especially when you have wide rows and you want to avoid repeated scrolling to the right and left, the data form can be useful.

1. Open the downloadable Excel file.

2. Click the Form command on the Quick Access Toolbar.

3. Use the Find Prev and Find Next buttons to easily switch from one record (row) to another.

Note: use the New or Delete button to add or delete records. Once you start editing a record, you can use the Restore button to undo any changes you make.

4. To display only those records that meet certain criteria, click the Criteria button.

5. Enter the criteria and click the Form button.

6. Now, when you use the Find Prev and Find Next buttons, you will only see those records that meet these criteria. In our example, only record 13.

Note: to edit the criteria, click the Criteria button again. To close the data form, click the Close button.

Remove Duplicates

This example teaches you how to remove duplicates in Excel. Go here to only find duplicates.

1. Click any single cell inside the data set.

2. On the Data tab, click Remove Duplicates.

The following dialog box appears.

3. Leave all check boxes checked and click OK.

Result. Excel removes all identical rows (blue) except for the first identical row found (yellow).

To remove rows with the same values in certain columns, execute the following steps.

4. For example, remove rows with the same Last Name and Country.

5. Check Last Name and Country and click OK.

Result. Excel removes all rows with the same Last Name and Country (blue) except for the first instances found (yellow).

Outlining Data

Outlining data makes your data easier to view. In this example we will total rows of related data and collapse a group of columns.

1. First, sort the data on the Company column.

2. On the data tab, click Subtotal.

3. Select the Company column, the column we use to outline our worksheet.

4. Use the Count function.

5. Check the Company check box.

6. Click OK.

Result:

7. To collapse a group of cells, click a minus sign. You can use the numbers to collapse or expand groups by level. For example, click the 2 to only show the subtotals.