Slicers are my new favorite feature in Excel. Introduced in Excel 2010, Slicers are like visual filters.
A simple example of slicers:
Let us say you have a sales report (pivot) for multiple salespersons. Since you want to show the report by one person at a time, you used report filters in pivot tables to display this. But you find that switching between regions is a pain using the report filter.
Enter slicers.
Now, you can just click the region name to show the report for that region, like this:
Using Slicers to Switch between Scenarios Dynamically:
Now, we can use slicers creatively to make an interactive scenario manager in Excel, some thing like this:
This technique gives the same outcome as the Display and Select Scenarios using VBA article, but easier to implement
How to use slicers to switch between scenarios?
Step 1: Set up various scenarios in a table
You need to define various scenarios in a table, like this:
Step 2: Create a pivot table from your scenario data
Select the table you created in step 1 and insert a pivot table. Use variable name as row label and variable value in value field area.
Step 3: Insert a slicer for the scenarios
Select anywhere inside the pivot. Now, from options tab, click on Insert Slicer button. Click on Scenarios field to insert a slicer.
Step 4: Create your model, in our case a break-even model
I will skip the explanation of model creation as that is not relevant here.
Once the model is set up, just refer to the pivot table for each of the variable values.
Step 5: Move slicer to Model
Go to the pivot table worksheet and Select the slicer, click CTRL+X to cut it.
Go back to your model worksheet and paste the slicer.
Step 6: Format the slicer
Excel slicers by default show an option to remove the filtered slicer. You can get rid of this button by,
1) Right click on the slicer
2) Go to slicer settings
3) Un-check Display Header option
See aside.
Step 7: Use the slicer to interactively switch scenarios
That is all, our smart scenario switching slicer is ready. Now, you can extend this in many ways. For example, you can write some clever formulas to handle selection of multiple slicers. You can compare between one scenario and another when more than one option is chosen from the slicer. So much more is possible. But I will let your imagination run wild.
Download Example Excel File:
I have made a simple example to demonstrate this technique.
Please download the file and open it in Excel 2010.
Examine the worksheets “Scenario Pivot” and “Model” to understand how the slicer is setup and how this works.
Do you slice?
As I said, Slicers are my new favorite feature in Excel. I have been using them as much as possible because they are simple to use and very powerful.
What about you? Do you slice often? What is your experience like? Please share your ideas and tips using comments.
More examples on Slicers & Pivot Tables:
1) Creating a Dynamic Dashboard in Excel using Slicers
2) Creating a Dynamic Chart using Pivot Table Report Filters
3) Remove Duplicates and Sort a list using Pivot Tables
4) More on Pivot Tables & Modeling
17 Responses to “Custom Number Formats – Colors”
You are right, Chandoo. I was playing with the colour numbers last week and some of them don't appear different from each other. Others are totally different from yours.
@Duncan
Each version of Excel, post 2003, renders colors slightly differently
Different language versions may also have different default color palettes
Hello in french
excel 2010
colo1 = couleur1 = black
[couleur1]; [couleur2]; etc..
@Hui, thank you very much again for this great post.
However - under Excel 2007, Hungarian version your solution does not work with color names. I've tried both English and Hungarian names, but drops an error message "not valid formats"
Do you have any idea how to solve this issue?
thanks in advance
@Andras
Without a Hungarian version of Excel 2003 I don't think I can assist
Have you tried using the colour numbers? I couldn't get the names to work (despite using an english version of excel). but it did work with the numbers though. I left out the "u" and was easily able to produce burgundy using [color9]
Here a possible solution: find an English version of Excel, write there the formats using English names, then open the file in the Hungarian version and see the translation.
In Excel 2007 I can't get the colour names to work e.g Sea Green but the numbers do e.g color3 - colour3 does not work so I must bow to the country that has stolen my language (ha ha!)
Hey chandoo, nice Tip!
Wouldn't be easier just apply some conditional formatting for negative numbers and another for positive numbers? Or there's some cases that you can't do that?
Unfortunately the TEXT function doesn't color the cell as number formatting does.
Hi Hui,
Great post Sir, love the new way of formatting with color numbers.
I am using 2007, and it leads me to the last color number 56.
Thanks Hui.
[…] explains how to set up custom number formats with a wide array of […]
Thanks Hui - works a treat!
Thank you, very helpful.
Trying to figure out if it is possible to apply color only to a part of the cell?
E.g. I have a value formatted as Accounting with a currency symbol.
Those I find somewhat distracting though necessary. If I could make them less obtrusive by coloring them gray while the number would stay black, that would be great. Tried tinkering with the format string, but didn't get the desired result. Single color for complete cell value works, but coloring just part of it could not be achieved. Maybe somebody managed that?
Exactly what I was looking for - thank you!
colour in the Australian doesn't work - we have to go American and no problem.
I always thought is was 56 colours notice you have 57. Cool.
thanks
Analir Pisani
Customised Microsoft Office Training Specialist
Sydney - Australia
http://www.azsolutions.com.au
Thank You!