A common Forum question and one that Chandoo has written about a few times is, Does my data overlap with another range?
Last week, Pradhishnair, asked in the Chandoo.org Forums “I need to find if the values between range D2:E2 are overlapping in any of the following rages, if yes then where? (may be row number)”
I answered with an array formula:
{=”Overlap Row S.no. = ” &MIN(IF((D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, (A3:$A$41)))}
Which returns ether:
Overlap Row S.no. = x (If there is an overlap)
or
Overlap Row S.no. = 0 (If there is no overlap)
So today in Formula Forensics we will take a look at how the above formula works with a worked example.
Chainage
As always you can follow along with a worked example. This is a subset of Pradhishnair’s Data to simplify the length of the equations, but otherwise is the same as the original post: Download Here
Pradhishnair’s data consists of a list of chainages. Chainages are measurements of distances from a fixed point and relate to a segment of something. Chainage From is to the closest end of the segment and and Chainage To is to the furthest end of the segment and by default these are in order, that is To is always greater than From.
Using this we can check for overlapping data by simply checking if the From is less than the remaining To’s or the To value is greater than the remaining From’s
This is done for each row compared to the remaining rows of data by the array formula
=”Overlap Row S.no.: ” & MIN(IF((D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, (A3:$A$41))) Ctrl Shift enter
We can see that the above equation simply joins
“Overlap Row S.no.: “
To the result of
MIN(IF((D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, (A3:$A$41)))
Using the & operator
It will return:
Overlap Row S.no. = 0 if there is no overlap
Or
Overlap Row S.no. = x If there is an overlap.
So the function
MIN(IF((D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, (A3:$A$41)))
Is used to return the minimum value of an If() formula which is its only component
The If() statement usually has three components:
=If( Condition, Value if True, Value if False)
In our case, I will evaluate Row 2, Particularly Cell G2, against the remaining entries in the two lists.
=If((D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, (A3:$A$41))
Condition: (D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0
Value if True: (A3:$A$41), This is just the S.No. in Column A
Value if False: Note that the If statement has no Value if it is False, I could put any value there eg: -1 or 0, but Excel evaluates it to 0 anyway so it hasn’t been used.
The If Statement says If (D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, then return (A3:$A$41)
What the condition is saying is If the To Data in the Current Row, Row 2, is Greater than or equal to the other From Values or the From Data in the Current Row, Row 2, is Less than the other To Value, Then this is True
To check this, in Cell I2, enter =(D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) and evaluate it with F9 instead of Enter
Excel returns ={1;1;0;0;0;0;0;0;0}
Excel is showing us that the first and second entries have overlapping data.
Which we can see if we look at the data
The >0 at the end of the (D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, transforms the array of 0’s and 1’s to an array of Falses and Trues
To check this, in I3, enter =(D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2)>0 and evaluate it with F9 instead of Enter
Excel returns ={TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE}
Now the If Statement will be True for the first two entries in the array and so will evaluate the Value if True component of the If Formula: (A3:$A$41)
We can check this
In cell I4 enter
=IF((D3:$D$41<=E2) *(E3:$E$41>=D2) >0, (A3:$A$41)) and press F9 instead of Enter
Excel returns
={2;3;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE}
Which is the array of S.No’s which match our criteria
Now Min comes in
=MIN({2;3;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE})
Min returns the Minimum of these which is 2.
And that is appended to “Overlap Row S.No. = “
To return the answer: Overlap Row S.No. = 2
Which is the first overlapping row with Row 1
Custom Number Formats
You may have noticed that the numbers in Pradhishnair’s worksheet look a bit odd with a + in the middle: eg: D3 displays 142+000
Pradhishnair is using a Custom Number Format of #+000
Select a Cell, eg D2, Press Ctrl 1, Select the Number Tab
If you select these cells and Press F2 Excel will show that the cells value is 142000
But Excel is using the custom Number format of #+000 to display the number with 3 digits after the +
Links to Overlapping Data Posts
http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/06/01/date-overlap-formulas/
http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/09/ec1-machine-scheduling-in-excel/
Download
You can download a copy of the above file and follow along, Download Here.
Other Formula Forensics Posts
You can learn more about how to pull Excel Formulas apart in the following posts
We Need Your Help
I received 3 ideas over the Xmas break from readers, and these will feature in coming weeks.
However I do need more ideas for the rest of 2012 and so I need your help.
If you have a neat formula that you would like to share and explain, try putting pen to paper and draft up a Post as Luke did in Formula Forensics 003. or like above.
If you have a formula that you would like explained but don’t want to write a post also send it in to Chandoo or Hui.
ps: I’m traveling to Esperance; Western Australia for a short holiday with the family but have left a neat Formula Forensic for you for next week.
23 Responses to “Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA”
Its possible to display up to 4 text values.
Have a look at the screen shot of an example that I had posted way back at the EHA and figure out how its done !
http://tinypic.com/r/muzywk/6
With Excel 2010 you can use Conditional Formatting to apply custom number formats which can display text. (In older versions you can only modify text color and cell background color, but not number formats.) Using CF allows for an even larger number of different display values.
[...] Display text values in Pivot Tables without VBA [...]
Hey,
Thanks, this helps. But how do you do it for multiple values where there is a huge amount of non repeating text?
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn't a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn’t a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
[...] Pivot Tables take tables of data and allow the user to summarise and consolidate the data at the same time. This is a great and very fast method of analysis but is restricted to handling mathematical functions on the value field resulting in numerical summaries. – read more [...]
[…] Read more here: Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA […]
There is a very good way actually for handling text inside values area.
First you create a special column on the very left side and call it ID, and put unique ID (numbers only), and then create a pivot table with:
Row Labels and Column labels as you like, and in the Values labels use the unique ID number.
Move the unique ID number (copy paste) somewhere to the right and use vlookup to load the data you need using the ID as reference.
It is a bit longer way but for me it works perfectly to combine values as you like in any moment.
hope helps.
Regards,
Jon
Thank you! I finally understand pivot tables thanks to your clear, concise explanations and examples.
Good Day. This is exactly what i have been looking for. However when i try it on my pivot table or even when i try to recreate this exercise using the sample worksheet, i get this error:
"Microsoft Excel cannot use the number format you typed. Try using one of the built-in number formats."
Same thing here, Excel quite did not like the format in my PowerPivot. Any clues as to what may be going on? Thanks.
I have the same thing happening on my end. I'm running a normal pivot table on a .xlsm file.
@Danzi
What format did you use?
can you post the file ?
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C
MR.A CFVDE2458T
MR.Z AAVCR12548C
MR.X AAAAC1254T
MR.Z AADCD245T
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C 1000
MR.A CFVDE2458T 2000
MR.Z AAVCR12548C 5451
MR.X AAAAC1254T 45564
MR.Z AADCD245T 4500
how to get pivot tabe so i get PAN no. against Name.
I found an easy way to get text values in pivot table.
I create an other worksheet in wich each cell has a formula that copy the pivot table. The trick is that the formula does a lookup for the numbers in the pivot table.
The formula looks like that:
=IF(ISNUMBER(table!A1);VLOOKUP(table!A1;Code!$A$1:$B$65;2);IF(ISBLANK(table!A1);" ";table!A1))
Code is a worksheet where there is a liste of text /numbers correspondance.
As a bonus The new sheet is easier to format
Additional trick:
In my case, i encoded differents codeid with a power(2, codeId-1) so that summing then is equivalent to concatenate them.
1-A
2-B
4-C
8-D
yields :
5 - AC
14 - BCD
Hi
I want to ask if pivot can display dates in pivot field. As in a column i have customers and in row different items i want to know there last purchase date. anyone help in this??
Hello Guys, Need your help
I am doing some analysis of the cycle time of the product i.e how much time a product takes from manufacturing to the central warehouse.
I have batch numbers for the product and against them i have to pull out the diff. dates
Like the base date is from where the manufacturing start. So i have the batch number,against it's manuf. date. Now i have to pull out the date when it was quality released.
I have the quality released data but the data have duplicates, like i will have two dates or may be three for the same batch. So my main objective is to pull out the date which is latest among them.
BATCH NO. DATE of Mfg. DATE of Quality release
A1 12/4/2014 (HERE I HAVE TO PULL value)
Next Sheet
BATCH NO. DATE of Quality Release
A1 14/5/2014
a2 23/5/2016
A1 12/5/2014
A1 13/6/2014
From this sheet i have to pull up the latest date format of date here is dd/mm/yyy
TIA
[…] needed to present text instead of counts in a pivot table value column. Here is an excellent resource for Excel manipulation, in addition to an overview of pivot […]
This is great thank you.
Wow!!! Excellent!! It helped me a lot.
I am developing training tracking sheet for 200 employees with training completed date. Each employee will be attending 25 courses. How to indicate actual dates in pivot table value field.