We all know the AND, OR & NOT formulas in Excel using which you can perform simple logical operations And, Or & Negate. But what if you are the chief of HR at ACME Company, where they have a strange rule on extra allowance like this:
Now, to calculate the dates in a month that meet this clause, we need an “exclusive OR” formula or what geeks call as “XOR” operation.
The logical operation … exclusive or (symbolized XOR, EOR), … results in a value of true if exactly one of the operands has a value of true. A simple way to state this is “one or the other but not both.”
Now, XOR or exclusive Or is a fairly common logical test, but there is no straight forward formula to test this. Instead we have to use a lengthy combination or AND, OR and NOT formulas to arrive at XOR.
For eg. assuming you want TRUE only when one of the two logical conditions A or B is TRUE,
you have to write,
=OR(AND(NOT(A),B),AND(A,NOT(B))) [Afterall, that is how XOR operation is defined to begin with]
Now, that seems like an awful formula. May be there is a better formula after all?!? One that is less crazier than the HR clause of ACME Co.
Well, there is.
If you observe closely, XOR is nothing but <> (not equal to sign). So, instead of going nuts writing the lengthy ANDORNOT combination, you can simplify the formula to,
=A<>B and it gives the same outcome.
So, the formula to find whether a given date (in cell A1) qualifies for bonus allowance,
=IF((WEEKDAY(A1)=6)<>(MOD(DAY(A1),5)=0),"Pay Bonus","Pay Regular")
More about logical formulas in Excel
AND Formula | OR Formula | NOT Formula | 51 common excel formulas
Do you XOR in real life?
There have been few occasions when I had to XOR in my worksheets. I found that writing the correct formula can be a bit tricky depending on how crazy the rule is. But almost always a combination of <>, NOT, AND and OR worked for me well.
What about you? Do you write formulas that involve complex IF clauses?
21 Responses to “How to Filter Odd or Even Rows only? [Quick Tips]”
Infact, instead of using =ISEVEN(B3), how about to use =ISEVEN(ROW())
So it takes away any chance of wrong referencing.
I like Daily Dose of Excel
I like it.
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
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.
Just for clarification, is Ashish looking to filter by even or odd Characters or rows?
so many functions to learn!
Nice support by chandoo and team as a helpdesk. Give us more to learn and make us awesome. Always be helpful.......
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,,)
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.
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.
Another way =MOD(ROW();2). In this case, must to choose betwen 1 and 0.
[...] How to Filter Even or Odd rows only [...]
very different style Odd or Even Rows very easy way to visit this site
http://www.handycss.com/tips/odd-or-even-rows/
Thanks for the tip, it worked like magic, saved having to delete row by row in my database.
Thanks!
Thankssssssssssssssss
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
Hi! Could you please help me find a formula to filter by language?
Thank you!
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
=IF(EVEN(A1)=A1,"EVEN - do something","ODD - do something else") with iferron (for blank Cell)