Late. Jayaram, my uncle is also a teacher. When I was a kid, I used to spend a lot of time with him, learning all sorts of things. He taught me chess, maths and so many life lessons. I remember one such lesson very vividly. One day, he asked me to do something. I did it in a very long way. After seeing me struggle for several minutes, he chipped in and showed me how to do it easily. He then said, “when someone asks you where your nose is, you don’t twist arm around your head. You just point to your nose directly.”
The idea is that when you have a direct, simple way to do something, you should use it.
Nose and pivot tables… how are they connected?
We are coming to the point. Recently, learneagerly, one of our forum users asked a question about how to transform (reshape) a set of data in Excel.
Marc L, one of our Excel ninjas, posted an awesome VBA script to do that.
Later in the day, I chipped in and shared a formula approach to transform the data.
I suggest checking out both approaches for learning more about VBA & INDEX formula respectively.
After posting my answer, I got thinking… May be there is a more direct way to reshape the data.
Why, yes, there is. You can use Pivot Tables.
Let’s take a look at the data & problem first
Here is a snapshot of raw data and expected output.
As you can see, we have two columns of data and we need to extract n (here it is 6) items from first column, then n from second column and lay them out in output. We repeat this until we run out of the data.
Reshape this thing with a Pivot
The first step is to add two extra columns to your raw data. Let’s call them Running & Repeat.
- Running: with numbers 1 thru 6 and repeat the pattern (just auto fill or copy paste)
- Repeat: with 6 cells of 1, 6 cells of 2… and repeat this pattern (auto-fill)
But what if I want a different n
Even better. use formulas. Let’s say your data starts from H6:I6
- Running: =MOD(ROWS($I$6:I6)-1,n)+1
- Repeat: =IF(J6=1,SUM(K5,1),K5)
Related: Using ROWS() to generate running numbers in Excel.
Now that we have these extra columns, select all the data (2 columns of data + 2 extra columns we just added) and insert a pivot table.
Set up the report by,
- Adding Repeat & Running to row labels area (in that order)
- Add Col A & Col B to values area.
- Move the ? values to row labels area (by dragging it)
- Position ? values between Repeat & Running row labels.
- Your pivot report’s last column will have the transformed data.
- Viola, nose pointed!
Download Example Workbook
Here is the example workbook. Examine the pivot table & formulas in Running & Repeat columns to learn more.
Get your Excel muscles in to shape
Are you struggling to find your nose or worse still, twisting your arm on the way? If so, check out our Excel school program. We have awesome online lessons, beautiful explanations, powerful techniques and easy to understand downloads. It won’t be long before you are smelling roses.
Check out our Excel School online class & join today.
How do you reshape your data?
Pivot Tables and Power Query are my go to tools for almost all kinds of reshaping problems. Often, I indulge in INDEX formulas or a bit of VBA. For example, just a few days ago, I had to split first 100,000 digits of Pi ? in chunks of 3 digits, 3 digits and 14 digits in a pattern. As the data is too long, loading it Excel cell was impractical. Loading it in to multiple lines with each having x digits was impractical (as I may need to split them in another pattern). So I used a simple VBA script to zap the data and get what I need.
In case you are curious: I made a chart to celebrate the Pi day (14th of March) with our community on Twitter.
But when I am not splitting irrational stuff, I usually rely on Pivot tables or PQ.
What about you? How do you reshape your data? Please share your approaches and tips in the comments section.
23 Responses to “Learn Top 10 Excel Features”
What it looks like if excel without formula?? 🙂
It would be not excel it would just be fancy tables in which you could just use power point. (Chandoo) would Access be an alternative?
Awesome piece of work!!!
Great article.
Chandoo - my biggest interest in the article was the awesome word-graphic at the top - where did you go to get it done into a shape?
@Rich.. thank you. I used http://www.tagxedo.com/ to generate this word cloud. I took all the comments in the original post, pasted them in tagxedo website and set up the shape etc.
Awesome Chandoo.. You need always needs coffee to start up with. BTW , how did u created the Heart Shaped picture filled with High Repetitive text in it .. Please put it on your Next blog ...
Chandoo, good article. I’ve added a link to it from Connexion – our collection of the most useful and interesting spreadsheet-related articles from the web. See http://www.i-nth.com/resources/connexion
Hi,
Just one small question. Where the hell have been I in the past for not discovering this website sooner?
I've lost a job interview recently where even though I had the subject knowledge, I was not upto their mark in Excel.
Thank you for all the free tips, guidance and for creating this forum environment.
[PS: I've just been through the site for the 1st time, and have signed up for the newsletter. You can expect pretty stupid questions from me soon]
Hy Chandoo, you always inspire me with to explore something new in excel. This data structure table is only for excel 2007 or compatible to 2010. I recently installed latest excel version 2013 in my System and experience problems regarding operating according to previous one. I'm waiting your article relates to that excel version.
Thanks
Awesome article Mr. Chandoo and that is a awesome heart shaped pic you created. Great tips as well.
[...] Learn Top 10 Excel Features | Chandoo.org – Learn Microsoft Excel Online. [...]
Chandoo is awesome..
Thanks, i got better, And i always get 90.50 in my grade card but now i get 96.50 i improved because of the tutorials you gave, Thank You Very Much Chandoo Guy.
Hi chandoo, i am intersted in seeing the video or step by step done procedure of analysing the comments and presenting in the data percentage steps. I think this one would be first step in finding out how generally happens data calculation. Thank you.
As well i would like to know how to get that black shape art of your face which i see in chandoo. I am interested in making it for me.
Nice to see the features considered by Excel users to be most useful. It might be a good idea to also analyze StackOverflow Excel questions to see what keywords appear most often.
Here are my top 10 Excel Features (for advanced users):
http://www.analystcave.com/excel-10-top-excel-features/
Thanks a ton for this it totally helped with my homework ????
Very good effort
Thank you for this. Lots of learning in the links you've provided for this septuagenarian.
Pls send me new post
Dude, your humor ? ?
Loved your work.
Hello Sir,
I am Sanjeev Khakre and i from Indore City, India , I am your big follower and i have watch your videos and learnt a lots of excel trick or function and many more . thanks so much for all of your excellent support.
Your excel knowledge is real awesome.
Thanks
Sanjeev
Your work is excellent but pls willing to know more details about the features of microsoft excel
Chandoo Would Access be a better alternative than VB?