Once you start using Excel to develop systems, budget, forecast and large tables of data you may come across the dilemma of “How do I know this is right” or “How do I truth check this”.
This post, Huis second, will add a tool to your arsenal to help you out.
The technique below allows for the rapid visual evaluation of 12 or more days/months/years of data via a chart of 2 variables and the ratio between them, utilising 2 sliders to rapidly change input variables.
DATA
Typically all businesses deal in 3 types of numbers, ie: Dates or Times, Physicals and Dollars.
Dates may include Times, Days, Weeks, Months, Years or any periods in between
Physicals directly relate to the business you are in but may include inputs and or outputs: eg: metal, tyres and cars, sugar, flour and cakes or whatever your business makes, strangely Physicals may also include Dollars, if you’re in the financial services sector. People are a Physical.
And Dollars which could be revenue, costs, cashflows or profit types of numbers.
I have found one of the best methods of looking at large tables of data is to look at a key input or output physical and then interactively scroll through the cost or income and calculate a ratio between the two.
I am going to use as an example a budget which has 40 rows of data including Physicals and Costs. But you will see that the techniques here can easily be extended to hundreds of rows. You can download this file here: Bobs Homes
The technique below allows rapid visual evaluation of 12 or more months data a chart of 2 variables and the ratio between them.
Using 2 sliders the user can rapidly move between variables and evaluate the variance over a given time frame against another variable.
The technique involves the charting of 3 ranges which in turn will be controlled by 2 sliders.
The first Range and slider will allow the selection of a Physical.
The second Range and slider will allow the selection of the Cost/Income component.
The third range will be the ratio of these, but specifically cost or income per physical.
I have attached a workbook, Bobs Homes, which contains 2 models, an example model for you to practice the following techniques on and a completed model which you can examine and pull apart to see how it works.
Load the model and scroll around and see what data is available. You will notice a time scale across the top with Physicals and Dollars down the left side. The Physicals and Dollars are grouped into common areas like inputs, outputs and costs, income and profit.
You will also note that there are 10 blank rows at the top of the worksheet. I do this so that I can perform simple calculations, charts or other workings without upsetting the data and other calculations below and for macro’s which automatically find the bottom of the data I know there is nothing below my data to upset the calculations.
Let’s jump in
SETUP
We’re going to add the following components
Headings
A2: Physical
A3: Cost/Revenue
A4: Ratio
E1: =E12
and copy across to Q1
Data
C2: 1
C3: 1
D2: =CONCATENATE(OFFSET(B$13,$C$2,0),OFFSET(C$13,$C$2,0))
D3: =CONCATENATE(OFFSET(B$22,$C$3,0),OFFSET(C$22,$C$3,0))
D4: =CONCATENATE(D3,”/”,D2)
E2: =OFFSET(E$13,$C$2,0)
E3: =OFFSET(E$22,$C$3,0)/1000
Copy E2:E4 across to Q2:Q4
Chart
Select Area D1:Q4
Insert Chart, Line Chart with or without markers to your liking
Suggestion – Place the Chart between the Data and the new Headings and formulas you have just added
Adjust the Legend to be at the Bottom of the chart
Sliders
Insert 2 Sliders
Developer Tab, Insert Scroll Bar (Form Control)
If you don’t have the Developer Tab, Have a read of: http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/05/26/excel-2007-productivity-tips/
Position the scroll bars so they are vertically next to the Chart, Use Alt whilst dragging to snap to Cell corners or edges
Link the sliders to the lookup cells
Slider 1
Current value: 1
Minimum: 1
Maximum: 7 (This is the number of Rows of Physicals data)
Incremental Change: 1
Page Change: 0
Cell Link: $C$2
Slider 2
Current value: 1
Minimum: 1
Maximum: 19 (This is the number of Rows of Cost/Revenue data)
Incremental Change: 1
Page Change: 0 (set this to maybe 10 if you have more than 30/40 rows)
Cell Link: $C$3
FINAL MODEL
You can now select a Physical by dragging the Left Scroll bar
You can now select a Revenue/Cost by dragging the Right Scroll bar
The Ratio of Cost/Revenue to the Physical is calculated and the 3 are all charted
Examine the model and see what variances in inputs/outputs can be seen.
HOW DOES THIS WORK?
The Formula in E2:Q3, are extracting the physicals and Cost/revenue data from the main body of the report by simply using an Offset function from the top of the Physicals and Cost/Revenue area.
The Distance they offset is retrieved from the control Cells C2:C3
The labels for the Physicals and Costs/Revenues are also retrieved using 2 Offsets inside a Concatenate. This is done to allow Heading Rows and Sub Headings to be displayed and joined if available from 2 separate columns.
The Chart is a simple Line Chart which is charting the 3 Data Rows (E2:Q4) against the Time Period (E1:Q1) at the top of the work area.
You can customise the chart to your content.
The 2 sliders control the control Cells C2:C3, and allow for interactive selection of Physicals and costs.
In use often you will find that one of the Physicals, Costs/Revenue or Ratio is generally much smaller in scale than the other 2 measures. Generally it is a good idea to plot the odd scale against a secondary Y axis.
Select the series line, Right Click and select Format Data Series
FUNCTIONS USED:
Offset: http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/11/19/vlookup-match-and-offset-explained-in-plain-english-spreadcheats/
Concatenate: http://chandoo.org/excel-formulas/concatenate.html
How do you truth check your data? Let us all know in the comments below:
How are you finding the content level of my posts? Let me know in the comments below:
20 Responses to “Untrimmable Spaces – Excel Formula”
Hi Chandoo,
First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Wish you and your family another fruitful year ahead.
To answer your question: Power Query is the best way to trim. 🙂
Btw, if Power Query is not available, then formula would absolutely do... but did you forget to mention also Char 32?
One more question: Is the trailing minus meant to be a negative number? Maybe only the sender knows... 🙂
Cheers,
I just see your PQ way, it is amazing, I think it is the most simple way.
No idea how it did it?
I know these spaces can be a real pain but these days I advise Excel users to learn and use Flash Fill and that will learn what to do pretty quickly.
Highlight range to be cleaned. Then, in Replace, hold down the Alt key and type 0160. Replace with nothing.
I accomplished this by writing a macro to go through all the possible unprintable characters. Looped through the range.
@Steve
Brute force works just as well, its just slower
I use a different method here. First, I will copy the data from Excel and paste it in a notepad. In Notepad, I will do a Find Blanks (Space " ") and Replace (Empty) with nothing.
Then you can copy the data from Notepad and paste it back to Excel which will be a perfect number as you desire.
But Thanks for the formula. Its probably the 2nd out of 8 tricks as Chandoo mentioned. Waiting for the rest among 8 from other users 🙂
Hi....
You don't always need notepad for that. I use the Find/Replace is Excel works just fine.
I don't understand the x's. Why weren't they removed in the formula? Or are they part of some sort of numeric formatting that I'm not familiar with? I saw how you handled the non-breaking spaces and the dashes, but am confused about what role the x's played in all this.
Thanks!
Hi Andrew ,
The xs have been used solely to demarcate the actual data text ; thus , without the x in place at the end of text , as in :
x 4,124,500.00 x
it would be impossible to know that there are unwanted trailing characters , in this case , after the last 0.
These xs are not part of the original data text , nor are they used in the formulae ; they are put in only so that readers can visualize the individual items of data as they are in practice. Think of them as imaginary delimiters.
Oh, that makes sense! Thank you for the explanation. I had a feeling it was something along those lines.
You can type this character using the Keys Alt+0160.
Very useful to replace this Character using Find and Select resource.
For many years, my jobs have included ETL tasks and I built this macro to help long, long ago. I tweak it every now and again. Many co-workers, past and present, have it wired to a button on their toolbar.
Sub Clean_and_Trim()
'CAUTION: Strips leading zeroes -- do not use on zipcodes, etc.
If Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
Revert = 1
ElseIf Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual Then
Revert = 0
End If
For Each Cell In Selection
For x = Len(Cell.Value) To 1 Step -1
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 160 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(160), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 32 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(32), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
Next x
If Cell.Value "" Then
Cell.Value = Application.Clean(Application.Trim(Cell.Value))
End If
Next
If Revert = 1 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
ElseIf Revert = 0 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
End If
End Sub
This is awesome! What if you have several characters you need to have removed? What would be the easiest way as I can imagine there are several ways.?
# - 35
$ - 36
- 62
/ - 47
, - 44
. - 46
" - 34
: - 58
This is typical case of a Fitbit data export to Csv file. Each number has CHAR160 as thousand separator.. how smart Fitbit, thank you 😉
By the way, i prefer to copy the character, and use find and replace.
Sometimes it happens if you copy a table from outlook and paste it in excel. When you apply formula on those cells you will get error. What i use to do is
copy one character that looks like space,
select the entire range,
go to Find and replace,
Paste the copied character in Find option
Leave the replace option unfilled..
click on replace all..
All the errors shall be converted in to proper values..
Process looks lengthier.. but it is one of the simplest method
If Clean, Trim, and Substitute, or Find and Replace does not complete the job, I usually enter a value of 1 in an empty cell. Copy the Value of 1, Highlight the range of text numbers, and Paste Special, Values, Multiply. This site is great!
You can use Dose for Excel Add-In that can quickly clean huge data with one click besides more than +100 new functions and features to add to your Excel to save time and effort.
https://www.zbrainsoft.com
Hi,
I have a problem in excel. The sheet attached herewith.
TABLE CONFIG 2/6
A B C D E F G H
1 WEIGHT1 43,599 WEIGH2 62500 WEIGHT3 77000 WEIGHT4 66,500
2 DEDUCTION1 15,000 DEDUCTION1 15,000 TEMP 0 DEDUCTION2 11,005
3 RESULT 58,599 RESULT-1 77,500 RESULT-2 77,000 RESULT-3 77,505
4 RESULT SUBSTRACT 0 0 0
5 REQUIRED VALUE 77,500 77,000 77,505
Note: 1- RESULT (58599) IS TO BE DEDUCTION EITHER FROM D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHEVER IS MOST
LEAST CELL AMONG RESULT-1 OR RESULT-2 OR RESULT 3.
2-HENCE, RESULT VALUE $B$3 IS TO BE PRESENTED ON CELL EITHER D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHER IS
MOST LEAST VALUE
3-FORMULA =IF(E8<H8,$B$9,IF(E8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<E8,$B$9,IF(J8<H8,$B$9))))))
CREATED ON CELL D4,F4 & H4 DID NOT WORK.
PLS FOR YOUR HELP.
THANK YOU
@R
Why not ask the question in the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
You can attach a file there