How to find the lowest value? [Quick tip]

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Lets say you are the head of purchasing department at Big Corp Co.

You are obviously very busy. Every day starting with a large cup of coffee and ends with a big smile, as you save your company thousands of $s by negotiating best deals, finding best providers and being awesome.

Today, let me share a small Excel tip with you that will make you even more awesome.

Finding a provider with lowest value:

Lets say you are looking at a table like below and want to find-out lowest priced providers for each service.

Finding provider with lowest value - using Excel formulas

To find providers with lowest value:

  1. Find the least amount for each service. Assuming the services are in the range C5:G5, use =MIN(C5:G5) to get this.
  2. Give a name to list of providers. I call mine as providers
  3. Using INDEX, MATCH formulas find the provider name with lowest amount. Like this:
    =INDEX(providers, MATCH(minimum_value, C5:G5, 0))
  4. Bingo. You have the answer.

Bonus tip #1: Highlighting lowest values.

If you just want to highlight the lowest values, use conditional formatting.

  1. Select first row of numbers.
  2. Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > Top / Bottom rules > Bottom 10 items
  3. Set to Bottom 1 and specify formatting as you want.
  4. Using format painter, copy the conditional formatting, one row at a time.
  5. Done!

Highlighting lowest value using conditional formatting

Bonus tip #2: Handling Ties

Often 2 or more providers will tie for the bottom spot. What then?

One way to handle the ties is to show the word ties when 2 or more names have lowest value. To do this, use this formula instead.

=IF(COUNTIF(C5:G5, minimum_value)>1,"Ties", INDEX(providers,MATCH(minimum_value,C5:G5,0)))

A formula challenge for you…

Now that you know how to find the lowest value, here is a challenge for you.

  • How do you write a formula to find which provider has maximum lowest values. In this example, the name we are looking for is TATA as they have 3 lowest values.

Want to find more… look here:

If you want to find more Excel formula tips and techniques, look no further. Start your journey with this and see how deep your formulas can nest.

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7 Responses to “Extract data from PDF to Excel – Step by Step Tutorial”

  1. Jinesh Vasa says:

    Dear Chandoo,

    Thank you very much for this and it is very helpful.
    However, all the Credit Card Statements are now password protected.
    Please advise how can we have a workaround for that

  2. Sivakumar H says:

    Hello sir,
    How to check two names are present in the same column ?
    Thanks and Regards

  3. Ahmed Mallook says:

    Hi, Thank you for the great tip. One problem, when I click on get data >> from file, I don't see the PDF source option. How can I add it?
    I tried to add it from Quick Access toolbar >>> Data Tab, but again the PDF option is not listed there.
    I am using Office 365

  4. PP says:

    Hi, Thank you for your video. I see you used the composite table, but I when I load my pdf, it does not load any composite table. It has 20 tables and 4 pages for one bank statement. I have about 30 bank statements that I want to combine. Your video would work except that I can't get the composite table and each of the tables I do get or the pages does not have all the info. what to do?

  5. Jr. H says:

    Dear Chandoo,
    How do we select multiple amount of tables/pages in one PDF and repeat the same for rest of the PDF;s in the same folder and then extract that data only on power query.

    Thank you

  6. antonlagi says:

    Hi, Thank you for your video. I see you used the composite table, but I when I load my pdf, it does not load any composite table. It has 20 tables and 4 pages for one bank statement. I have about 30 bank statements that I want to combine. nice share

  7. One bank statement takes up 20 tables and four pages in this document. I need to consolidate roughly thirty different bank statements that I have. Your video would be useful if I could only get the composite table, which I can't for some reason, and each of the tables or pages that I can get is missing some information.

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