Time for a quick but very useful tip. Ever wanted to create all combinations from two (or more) lists? a la Cartesian product of both lists.
Here is a ridiculously simple way to do it.
Make Cartesian product of two tables in Excel
Note: You need Excel 2013 or above for this.
- Convert two lists to tables, if not already done.
- Select any cell in one of the tables and go to Insert > Pivot Table (Use ALT + NV shortcut)
- Make sure to check “Add this data to the Data Model” option before clicking ok.
- From your pivot table field list, switch to ALL view.
- Add both (or all fields) to row label area.
- Now, change the pivot table layout to “Show in tabular form” and check “Repeat all item labels” option.
- Turn off sub totals & grand totals.
- Viola, your cross product is ready. All combinations are generated by Excel for you. Use them as you see fit.
More fun ways to use Pivot Tables
Pivot tables versatile. You can use them to replace formulas, analyze data, create interactive dashboards and do several cool things. Check out below tutorials to get started.
13 Responses to “Data Validation using an Unsorted column with Duplicate Entries as a Source List”
Pivot Table will involve manual intervention; hence I prefer to use the 'countif remove duplicate trick' along with 'text sorting formula trick; then using the offset with len to name the final range for validation.
if using the pivot table, set the sort to Ascending, so the list in the validation cell comes back alphabetically.
Hui: Brillant neat idea.
Vipul: I am intrigued by what you are saying. Please is it possible to show us how it can be done, because as u said Hui's method requires user intervention.
Thks to PHD and all
K
Table names dont work directly inside Data validation.
You will have to define a name and point it to the table name and then use the name inside validation
Eg MyClient : Refers to :=Table1[Client]
And then in the list validation say = MyClient
Kieranz,
Pls download the sample here http://cid-e98339d969073094.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/data-validation-unsorted-list-example.xls
Off course there are many other ways of doing the same and integrating the formulae in multiple columns into one.
Pls refer to column FGHI in that file. Cell G4 is where my validation is.
Vipul:
Many thks, will study it latter.
Rgds
K
[...] to chandoo for the idea of getting unique list using Pivot tables. What we do is that create a pivot table [...]
@Vipul:
Thanks, that was awesome! 🙂
@Playercharlie Happy to hear that 🙂
Great contribution, Hui. Solved a problem of many years!
Thanks to you, A LOT
Hi Hui,
Greeting
hope you are doing well.
I'm interested to send you a private vba excel file which i need to show detail of pivot in new workbook instead of showing in same workbook as new sheet.
Please contact me on muhammed.ye@gmail.com
Best Regards