Filter in MS Excel 2007

Filter in MS excel 2007 enables a user to have a compact and a more relevant view of the data. It allows a user to choose the desired data for analysis and hides data not required for current analysis.


Imagine a file of 2500 rows having data of 20 products. And, in order to make a crucial business decision, you want a product-wise look at your data.

Here’s a solution for doing so.

MS excels comes with a powerful inbuilt tool called Filter. As the name suggests, this tool filters desired data out of the whole lot of data.  Let’s get started.

           1.   In your data loaded spreadsheet, select the data on which the filter has to be applied.
           2.   On the ribbon, click data and select filter (illustrated below)


Filter in Excel
Filter in Excel 2007 (Click to enlarge)

         3.   And it’s done. You have applied filter function to your data. You  will see drop down arrows on the 
                 top row of your data as shown below:

Filter in Excel
Filter in Excel 2007 (Click to enlarge)

          4.    On clicking the drop down arrows you can arrange the data in the desired manner. For example, if  
                you wish to see the data of a particular location, click the location drop down arrow and uncheck 
                the select all check box. Now select the location of your choice. Once this is done the data of all 
                other locations will become invisible. All hidden data can be brought back by clicking select-all 
                check box in the drop down menu. 


Filter in Excel
Filter in Excel 2007 (Click to enlarge)


     5.   Advanced uses of Filter function in MS Excel 2007. 
           Users can also use criteria for getting the desired data through the Filter function. For example, in any of  
           the data columns, users can get the desired data based on the following inbuilt filters in excel. One may 
           use the following: 
                 a.   Value in the data Equals
                 b.   Value in the data does not equal
                 c.   Value in the data begins with
                 d.   Value in the data ends with
                 e.   Value in the data contains
                 f.   Value in the data does not contain
                 g.   User defined filter (Custom filter)

Filter in Excel



        For any assistance on the usage of the Filters in MS Excel 2007, feel free to comment on the post.

  Happy Learning!