Here is a fun way to use Paste Special to quickly multiply everything in a range with 1.1 (why 1.1? Well, imagine you have a report with everything in US $s and your boss wants to see the numbers in Australian $s…)
But your report looks like this:
And the total column has different formulas for each row. So you can’t multiply first cell with a rate variable and drag it down. You have to manually edit each formula and add *rate at the end of it.
Oh wait…, you can use Paste Special.
Simple, use below steps:
- Write the exchange rate in a cell. Name it as rate (or whatever you fancy).
- In a blank cell write =rate
- Copy this blank cell.
- Select the range of numbers which you want to multiply with rate
- TIP: if the numbers are not together, hold CTRL and multi-select the ranges.
- Press CTRL + ALT + V to launch paste special dialog
- Select Multiply as operation type
- Select Formulas as paste type
- Click ok
- Your multiplication is done!
- When the rate changes, simply change the original rate cell
Here is a quick demo of this process. Watch it to learn more.
Do you use Paste Special operations?
I use the operations feature of paste special from time to time. But I never thought it would actually write formulas when multiplying with a cell having formula. This is really cool and could save time in some very tricky situations.
What about you? Do you use Paste Special operations feature? When do you use it? Please share your tips & experiences in the comments area.
More tips on Paste Special
If you think pasting is all about CTRL+V, you are obviously missing out on many time saving features of Excel.
Check out below articles for many cools ways to save time when copy pasting things in Excel.
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