Last week we learned how to answer questions like, “How many tiles in a room?” using Excel. We learned about CONVERT function and fraction number format settings in Excel.
But why stop at calculation? We can even model a room full of tiles, thanks to Excel’s grid nature.
So today, we will learn how to create a room layout like this using Excel:
If you like the demo, read on to learn.
Step 1: Set up input cells
To model tiles in a room, we need 4 inputs. Lets call them by below names.
- room.length
- room.width
- tile.length
- tile.width
Step 2: Calculate number of tiles required
The basic formula for calculating total tiles required is this:
=ROUNDUP((room.length*room.width)/(tile.length*tile.width), 0)
But this formula yields in an unrealistic solution as we do not want to have fractional tiles everywhere. So, a better way to calculate this is,
=ROUNDUP(room.length / tile.length,0) * ROUNDUP(room.width / tile.width,0)
Although this formula is technically correct, you may save a few tiles if you rotate the them.
That is,
ROUNDUP(room.length / tile.width,0) * ROUNDUP(room.width / tile.length,0) can be smaller than ROUNDUP(room.length / tile.length,0) * ROUNDUP(room.width / tile.width,0) in some cases, as shown in above demo.
So we need a way to flip tile dimensions if that saves us a few bucks. That is done by,
Step 3: Flipping tile dimensions with a switch
Insert a check box and link to a blank cell, say F6.
[Related: How to use a check box in Excel]
Now, using F6 value (either TRUE or FALSE), flip the values of tile.length & tile.width using IF() formula.
Step 4: Create a 100×100 grid
Although you can model the floor plan of entire Buckingham palace in Excel, lets restrict ourselves to rooms of size 100×100.
Select 101 columns and resize them small enough so you can see all of them in a single screen, like 10 pixels wide.
Select 101 rows and adjust their height so that you can see as many of them as possible in a single screen (10 pixels tall should do).
Type running numbers in first column & row. The final grid looks this this:
Step 5: Modeling the room layout using conditional formatting
So we have a big 100×100 grid where we need to draw
- Outer boundary for the room as per room.length & room.width
- Inner tile boundaries as per tile.length & tile.width
Set up conditional formatting rules for room boundary
There are 4 rules required.
- Draw vertical left border if the topmost row = 1
- Draw vertical right border if the topmost row = room.length
- Draw horizontal top border if the left-most column = 1
- Draw horizontal bottom border if the left-most column = room.width
Below, see one of the rules.
You can find other conditional formatting rules in the downloadable workbook.
Step 6: Modeling Tiles using conditional formatting
While we need 4 rules for the room boundary, we just need 2 rules for tile boundaries.
- Draw vertical right border if the topmost row value is divisible by tile.length
- Draw horizontal bottom border if the left-most column value is divisible by tile.width
We do not need rules for vertical left border or horizontal top border because they will be drawn by previous tile.
See one of the rules below:
That’s all. Our room model is ready. Go ahead and see how it looks when tile it.
Download Example Workbook
Click here to download room tiles model workbook and play with it. Examine the conditional formatting rules to understand it better.
Do you apply Conditional Formatting in such creative ways?
I personally think conditional formatting is as good as honey, mangoes or dark chocolate. I love to use a dollop of it in all my Excel recipes.
What about you? Do you use conditional formatting for anything out-of-box 😉 like this? Please share your tips using comments.
Want more? Check out these conditional formatting examples
If you want more on conditional formatting you are in luck. Check out,
- Gantt chart using Excel conditional formatting
- Baby feeding schedule using conditional formatting
- Todo list using Excel conditional formatting
- Making data entry forms awesome with conditional formatting
- Searching data using conditional formatting
- Market segmentation charts with conditional formatting
- More examples on conditional formatting
21 Responses to “Distinct count in Excel pivot tables”
The distinct count option works well but I have found that if I have a date field and want to group by year, month, etc. that option seems to be disabled. I need to do both, distinct count and group by year/month.
Example data; sales orders with item quantities with dates.
Challenge; sum the item quantities, count the distinct orders and group by month. How do I do this?
Perhaps that's not possible due to the grouping?
@Al... When you use data model based pivots, you cannot group values manually anymore. Why not use Excel 2016's default date grouping option? In this case we have just a few dates, so Excel is not grouping them, but if you have an year's worth of data, when you make the pivot with date in the row label area, Excel automatically groups them. If you have fewer dates or want to use your own grouping, just create a table with all dates, add columns with month, week, year etc. Then connect this table (these types of tables are usually called as calendar tables) to your data on date field as a relationship. Now you can create reports by month, quarter etc easily.
Is this the only way to do it in 2013? I find it rather cumbersome to have to create another data table listing dates with the another column for MONTH() and YEAR() to be able to summarise data for senior level...
I know people find adding calendar tables cumbersome, but it is a best practice and let's you add more layers of analysis quite easily. For example, adding analysis by weekday vs. weekend or by financial quarter or YTD calculations (you would need either Power Pivot DAX or some very carefully setup pivot table value field settings)
I had absolutely no idea this was possible. Very useful, nice work!
Doesn't work for 2010 version though (or at least not my works version)
Hi ,
The post has the following in it :
These instructions work only in Excel 2016, Office 365 and Excel 2013.
when i have 2 different Pivot tables, one without the enabled “Add this data to data model” option, and the other one with it enabled.. is there anyway i can link slicers between them?
if the answer is NO,, what to do ?
Quick note, the “Add this data to data model” option is not available for the Mac version.
perhaps outside scope of this article but I have found when I attempt to create a pivot table from an external data source (connection to a sql view) the "Add this data to data model" becomes greyed out. Anybody experienced and found a solution so I can start getting distinct count in my pivot tables?
Is there a way to still add a calculated field when using distinct count?
I found I can't change the date source after tick the " add this data to the data model", can you help to adv how to change the date source in such case?
Is there a way to update the source once you have added to the data model? I receive a new spreadsheet weekly and would like to update the connection so my tables pull from the new source.
Hi Crhis, I like how you have hulk (superhero) as your avatar. Do you know that there is a superhero in Excel too? It's Power Query. You can use it to solve your problem in a simple click. Here an intro if you need some guidance.
Powerful Introduction to Power Query
A big Thank you. It worked.
Hi, have survey data that I need to analyze but the challenge is that my key fields are showing horizontally. I tried to transpose the fields using Power Query, but unfortunately the new fields are returning same values on a pivot table despite using distinct values
How I can a do a pivot table with discount conts in some columns and then generate shor report filter pages. pls it drives crazy
Hi. Why grand total pivot of distinct count is 13? shouldn't it be 67?
Great Answer! Saved me lots of time!
Thank you!!!
Worked awesome! Thanks!!
Hi Chandoo,
I am using pivot tables for distinct count and now I need to update them with new set of data. But when I update the source data, all the columns and formatting of Pivot table disappears and I need to build it from Scratch.
Is there a possibility that I can update the source data with new rows added and also retain my pivot tables?