Power Query (Get & Transform data in Excel 2016) is a must have tool, if you wrangle with data every day. Here is a quick introduction, in case you are new.
Let’s learn how to use Power Query to unpivot data.
Essentially, we are trying to go from left to right in this picture.
Doing something like this thru either formulas or VBA can be very complex. But Power Query can get you unpivoted data in just a few clicks. Sounds interesting? Read on.
Tutorial: Unpivot data using Power Query
Step 1: Set up your pivoted data as a table
If you want Power Query to work with data in Excel, it must be in table form. So select any cell in the pivoted data and press CTRL+T to turn it in to a table.
At this stage, we get this:
Step 2: Load table data in to Power Query
While keeping the selection inside pivot data, go to Power Query ribbon (or Get & Transform area of Excel 2016 data ribbon) and click on “from Table” button.
This will take your table data and load it in to a new query in Power Query. It looks like this:
Step 3: Get rid of grand totals
When unpivoting data, we don’t need the grand totals. To remove them,
- Select the grand total column
- Click on “Remove Columns” button in query editor (Power Query window)
- Click on “Remove Rows” button, select remove bottom rows option.
- Enter the number of rows as 1
At this stage, grand total column & row are gone. We end up with this:
Step 4: Fill down the missing region names
If your pivot table has null / blank values in the first column, you can fill them with values from above cells using the Fill option of query editor. Select the Region column and click on the Fill button from transform ribbon. See this demo:
Step 5: Remove sub-total rows by filtering them away
Click on the filter button next to region and filter away all the sub-total columns too. We don’t need them for unpivoting.
Step 6: Unpivot the data
Now that our data is in correct shape, let’s unpivot.
Select the last 3 columns and click on Unpivot columns button in Transform ribbon.
And we get the unpivoted data.
You can load this data to Excel or to your data model for further processing.
Download example Power Query workbook
Please click here to download the example workbook for this tutorial. To examine the query settings and power query steps,
- Open the workbook
- Go to Power Query ribbon (or Data ribbon in Excel 2016) and click on Workbook Queries Show Pane option.
- Right click on “Unpivot Data” query and choose edit
- This opens the query editor. You can examine the steps in the query steps pane to right.
Learn more about Power Query / Get & Transform data:
Power Query (or less intimidating Get & Transform data in Excel 2016) is an impressive technology to help you deal with common data problems easily. If you are an analyst who relies on Excel, learning Power Query is going to make you super productive. Check out below tutorials to get started with this amazing feature.
- Introduction to Power Query – podcast
- Importing web data using Power Query
- Recommended Power Query training from Ken & Miguel
How do you unpivot your data?
I used to write VBA programs to unpivot my data. But now that I have Power Query, I use it anytime I need unpivoting.
What about you? How do you unpivot your data? Please share your thoughts and tips in the comments section.
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)