10 Supercool UI Improvements in Excel 2010

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Today I want to introduce Excel 2010 to you. Excel 2010 is the latest version of spreadsheet software from Microsoft, set to be released for sale in late 2010. On Nov 18th, MS released the public beta of Excel 2010 [download here] along with other Office productivity software.

Excel 2010 has several improvements compared to earlier version – Excel 2007. In this post, I want to highlight some of the User Interface improvements made in Excel 2010 that are very exciting and fun to use.

Preview before pasting

Preview before pasting
This is another cool feature in Office 2010. When you have some data to paste, now you can preview the paste live before choosing an option. See the illustration to understand how this works.

Collapse Ribbon using a button

Collapse Ribbon using a button
Now you can collapse the ribbon using this simple button. No need to double click on ribbon menus to collapse the ribbon.

Bye bye Office button, welcome back “File” menu

Bye bye Office button, welcome back
With excel 2010, MS is bringing back the “file” menu. When I started using excel 2007, it took me a week to get used to the office button. Now, thankfully the file menu is back.

Double click on chart items to format them

Double click on chart items to format them
With Excel 2010, you can again click on chart items (like labels, data series, axis, titles etc.) to open the format dialog. This is a nice improvement. Of course, the dialogs are still 2007 like.

Search inside filters (oh, this feels recursive)

Search inside filters (oh, this feels recursive)
When you set auto filters in excel 2010, now you can use a little search bar inside the filter to select the items you want to filter. This makes life lot more simpler for those of you aksing questions like “so how many are from alabama?”

Tables show filters even when you scroll down

Tables show filters even when you scroll down
Another interesting improvement is that when you make a data table in excel 2010, you will see filters and sort options even when you scroll down.

Excel 2010 UI less flashier than 2007

Excel 2010 UI less flashier than 2007
Excel 2010 UI looks considerably better and less stressful than 2007. The colors are dull and subtle. The icons don’t call for attention unless you want to do something. The menus / ribbons feel smoother and slicker. [Learn to use Excel Ribbon with this Free e-Book]

All new print previews

All new print previews
The print previews are now part of backstage. Printing seems much more easier with excel 2010 than earlier versions.

You can customize ribbon

You can customize ribbon

With Excel 2010, you can customize the ribbon very easily (you can do that in Excel 2007 too, but it is bit more intricate). Just go to Excel options and select “customize ribbon” option. You can make your own ribbon menus and add the buttons / tools you prefer.
[Originally this point read “you can select multiple objects…” but as my good friend Jon pointed, it was a mistake. So I have deleted that part and added a new improvement]
You can select multiple objects using mouse, again
In excel 2003 and earlier, if you had to format multiple objects (like charts, drawings, clip arts etc.) you could use the “select objects” from drawing toolbar (the icon that looks like a mouse pointer). Sadly, MS removed this feature in Excel 2007, so to format multiple objects, we had to manually click on each object while holding SHIFT key. Now, the select objects is back. This can be a time saver if you work with several charts or shapes at a time.

Slicers to filter pivot tables with ease

Slicers to filter pivot tables with ease
And of course, the much touted slicers. Slicers are easy to use and make analysis more fun. See the demo.

Have you tried Excel 2010 ?

Did you try excel 2010? If not download it from MS site. Give it a try and let us know what you think about it.
What are the features that you liked / hated?

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21 Responses to “How to Filter Odd or Even Rows only? [Quick Tips]”

  1. Vijay says:

    Infact, instead of using =ISEVEN(B3), how about to use =ISEVEN(ROW())

    So it takes away any chance of wrong referencing.

  2. Hui... says:

    I like Daily Dose of Excel

  3. vimal says:

    I like it.

  4. Luke M says:

    Just a heads up, you do need to have the Analysis ToolPak add-in activated to use the ISEVEN / ISODD functions. An alternative to ISEVEN would be:
    =MOD(ROW(),2)=0

  5. Debbi says:

    rather than use a formula, couldn't you enter "true" in first cell and "false" in the second and drag it down and than filter on true or false.

  6. Paul S says:

    Just for clarification, is Ashish looking to filter by even or odd Characters or rows?

  7. Fred says:

    so many functions to learn!

  8. Istiyak says:

    Nice support by chandoo and team as a helpdesk. Give us more to learn and make us awesome. Always be helpful.......

  9. Arps says:

    In case you want to delete instead of filter,

    IF your data is in Sheet1 column A
    Put this in Sheet2 column A and drag down
    =OFFSET(Sheet1!A$1,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)
    (This is to delete even rows)

    To delete odd rows :
    =OFFSET(Sheet1!A$2,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)

  10. Pippa says:

    If your numbered cells did not correspond to rows, the answer would be even simpler:
    =MOD([cell address],2), then filter by 0 to see evens or 1 to see odds.

  11. Matthew D. Healy says:

    I sometimes do this using an even simpler method. I add a new column called "Sign" and put the value of 1 in the first row, say cell C2 if C1 contains the header. Then in C3 I put the formula =-1 * C2, which I copy and paste into the rest of the rows (so C4 has =-1 * C3 and so forth). Now I can just apply a filter and pick either +1 or -1 to see half the rows.

    Another way, which works if I want three possibilities: in C2 I put the value 1, in C3 I put the value 2, in C4 I put the value 3, then in C5 I put the formula =C2 then I copy C5 and paste into all the remaining rows (so C6 gets =C3, C7 gets =C4, etc.). Now I can apply a filter and pick the value 1, 2, or 3 to see a third of the rows.

    Extending this approach to more than 3 cases is left as an exercise for the reader.

  12. Paulo says:

    Another way =MOD(ROW();2). In this case, must to choose betwen 1 and 0.

  13. Makhan Butt says:

    very different style Odd or Even Rows very easy way to visit this site

    http://www.handycss.com/tips/odd-or-even-rows/

  14. Terhile says:

    Thanks for the tip, it worked like magic, saved having to delete row by row in my database.

  15. majid says:

    Thankssssssssssssssss

  16. Bhanu says:

    Hi Chandoo- First of all thanks for the trick. It helped me a lot. Here I have one more challenge. Having filtered the data based on odd. I want to paste data in another sheet adjacent to it. How can I do that?
    For Example-
    A 1 odd
    B 3 odd
    C 4 even
    D 6 even
    I have fileted the above data for odd and want to copy the "This is odd number" text in adjacent/next sheet here. How can I do that. After doing this my data should look like this
    A 1 odd This is odd number
    B 3 odd This is odd number
    C 4 even
    D 6 even

  17. Adriana says:

    Hi! Could you please help me find a formula to filter by language?
    Thank you!

  18. avinash says:

    Chandoo SIR,

    I HAVE A DATA IN EXCEL ROWS LIKE BELOW IS THERE ANY FORMULA OR A WAY WHERE I CAN INSTRUCT I CAN MAKE CHANGES , MEANS I WANT TO WRITE ONLY , THE FIG IS FRESH, BUT IN BELOW ROW IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY TAKE THE SOME WORDS FROM FIGS AND MAKE IN PLURAL FORM , WHILE USING '' ARE'' LIKE BELOW

    The fig is fresh - row 1
    Figs are fresh - row 2
    The Pomegranate is red - row 3
    Pomegranates are red - row 4

  19. Arshad Hussain Shah says:

    =IF(EVEN(A1)=A1,"EVEN - do something","ODD - do something else") with iferron (for blank Cell)

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