It is Your Week @ PHD. You get to see all the excel tips shared by PHD readers like you. I am very excited about this. Today I rushed home from work and opened the google docs to see the tips submitted by you, and found several new and fun things. You can be part of this excitement too: just click here to share your tips with us.
Here is the part 1 of the series.
The first and foremost chart construction tip by Jon Peltier
Before you take any steps towards constructing a chart, get the data right. This will save time and effort, reduce frustration, and amaze your boss, clients, and that cute young thing in accounting. Well, your boss and clients anyway.
Consider it as a set of data extracted from a database: each row is a record, each column is a field, the first row is the field names.
First row of the data range: series names as column headers.
First column of the data range: category labels or X values.
Intersection of first row and first column: overcome your natural tendency for order and uniformity, and leave this cell blank.
Data is Series in columns.
A Flurry of Keyboard Shortcuts and Productivity Hacks by Barbara
I use several shortcuts
- F12 for ‘Save As’
- F2 for ‘Edit’
- F4 to switch between absolute and relative formula references, whilst in edit mode.
- Control & 1 (using the number keys not the number pad) for ‘format cells’
If you want to copy part of a spreadsheet to a powerpoint:
Highlight the area, hold shift, click edit in the menu, copy picture, choose ‘as shown on screen’ or ‘as shown when printed’. Paste into the powerpoint slide.If you put the insert rows, insert columns & group icons in you toolbar you can use them for the opposite function as well. Press & hold the shift key, then click on one of the tools, it will do the opposite. This not only saves space in your toolbar, but I find it useful as I can not easily tell the difference between the insert & delete or group & ungroup icons.
Several ways to search text using formulas by Vishy
Download these examples and play with them.
Lookup into SubstringLet’s say you want to find Age in Column D by referring to Part of First Name in cell G3 as below
First Names are in B3:B7
Ages are in D3:D7
Part of First Name Reference in G3
{ =INDEX($D$3:$D$7,MATCH(TRUE,FIND(G3,$B$3:$B$7)>0,0)) } Must be entered as an array (Ctrl + Shift + Enter)
Use SEARCH instead of FIND for case-insensitive lookup
You can also use regular expressions – Download the examples
* refers to any number of characters, including null (i.e. no character)
? refers to exactly one character, not null
Multiple Criteria Lookup
Let’s say you want to find Age in Column D by referring to First Name in cell G4 and Last Name in H4 as below
First Names are in B3:B7
Last Names are in C3:C7
Ages are in D3:D7
First Name Reference in G4
Last Name Reference in H4
{ =INDEX($D$3:$D$7,MATCH(1,($B$3:$B$7=G4)*($C$3:$C$7=H4),0)) } Must be entered as an array (Ctrl + Shift + Enter)
Some Resources to help you understand these tips:
Introduction to Excel Array Formulas
INDEX Excel Formula – Learn by Example (Used to construct a dynamic chart)
MATCH Excel Formula – Tutorial & Examples
Absolute and Relative Formula References – A Beginner Guide
Jon, Barbara and Vishy, You are truly amazing human beings. We at PHD love you for these wonderful tips.
24 Responses
I’d suggest simply using the subtotal function and filtering the data using the Win/Loss column. You get the same results and the formula is more comprehensible.
@John
That is one option.
There are times however when you want to see the whole data table or a filtered subset and still want to produce summary reports against an unfiltered field.
Is there a particular reason why you are using a comma and the unary (–) operator for the second array in the SUMPRODUCT formula? It seems to work the same if you were to string the arrays together using the asterisk (*). The advantage is that SUMPRODUCT treats the entire string of arrays as a single array.
@Mathew
Your correct, There is no difference.
I thought it may have been easier to explain this method.
Is there a way to do this on a large set of data? As in ~100,000 rows? When I try I get an error because the formula becomes too long. It says the max length of a formula is 8,192 characters. Excel 2010.
How do I incorporate a specific text within a cell for the second array. For instance, – -(C7:C13=”Apple”)
when I chose a specific text the formula does not work.
@RB
I am not sure what is the issue as if I use the sample data in the post the following work fine
Count:
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET(C7:C13,ROW(C7:C13)-MIN(ROW(C7:C13)),,1)), –(C7:C13=”L”))
Sum:
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET(C7:C13,ROW(C7:C13)-MIN(ROW(C7:C13)),,1)),(C7:C13=”L”)*(D7:D13))
You may want to check that there are no leading or trailing spaces in your list of Apples
I should have given a better explanation. Heres my situation. I have a column with cells filled with names like Column 1, Column 2, Pier 1, Pier 2, etc. If the cell just contained Pier and searched for that it works. But because it has other characters in the cell its not recognizing the pier. So how can I extract specific characters of a string of text in this formula?
Hopefully this was a better explanation
Hello-
This formula works pretty well for me except that it slow down excel and prevents some of my macros from working. I was wondering if there was a way to program this in VBA so that excel isn’t always trying to recalculate it. I would like to use a push of a button to get it to run then paste in a cell.
Thanks!
I am trying to sum filtered data in a column, but would want to ignore the negative values in the column. How to go about doing this?
@Akshay
Why not just add a filter to that column to only show the values greater than zero?
The negative values are required for reporting purposes, but their effect on the total is distorting the required output. Please advise.
@Akshay
I’d suggest making a post in the Chandoo.org Forums
http://forum.chandoo.org/
Attach a sample file to simplify the task
I have this working for counting and summing, however, I have a list and for the second array, I need a criteria. That is, I’m looking for b13:b200=”01.??.??” or =left((a1,2) or something like that. These types of criteria matches do not appear to work as I get a blank as a result.
Thanks!
@Bob
As your formula b13:b200=”01.??.??” looks like you are trying to check the first day of the month of the range
What about trying Day(B13:B200)=1
Hai Experts,
i understood this formula well and working fine in MS Excel 2013
but when the same am trying to place in google Spreadsheet it shows error as
“SUMPRODUCT has mismatched range sizes. Expected row count: 1. column count: 1. Actual row count: 2014, column count: 1.” and as a result #VALUE! Appears in cell.
Can anyone please help me how would i get it done in Google Spread sheet
or is there any other formula as a substitute for this.
Thank you very much.
thanks for providing this.. but why does excel keeps on prompting Circular referencing in cell D3?
@Vivek
I don’t know
I just downloaded the file and it is working fine and not showing that error
Goto the Formulas, Calculation Options Tab and check that Calculation is set to Automatic
What version of Excel and Windows are you using ?
I know that this forum is for MS Excel, but I am trying to help someone who is working in Google Sheets. The below formula works in Excel but Google Sheets returns:
“SUMPRODUCT has mismatched range sizes. Expected row count: 1. column count: 1. Actual row count: 39000, column count: 1.” and as a result #VALUE! Appears in cell.
This is the same problem asked by Srichirin above. Does anyone know if there is a formula for Google Sheets that will replicate what MS Excel does?
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET($C$6:$C$39500,ROW($C$6:$C$39500)-MIN(ROW($C$6:$C$39500)),,1)),- -($C$6:$C$39500=H1),($D$6:$D$39500))
Trying to find a SUMPRODUCT formula that counts the word Closed by date for the last 7 days in a filtered list.
=COUNTIF(M:M,”>”&TODAY()-7) works ok for unfiltered count Column M contains Closure dates (blank if open) and Column L is Status Open or Closed
@ Terry
Please ask the question at the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
Please attach a sample file to ensure a quicker more accurate answer
I used this formula and worked like a charm! But, now I’ve been requested to use it but adding not one but two criteria in the same formula. For instance the sum I was doing added negative and positive numbers. I’ve been asked to use the exact same formula but adding that only positive numbers were considered… any idea on how to do this?
How exactly do you do sum filtered cells when two criteria are need not just one?
Thank you so much brother literally I have been struggling since morning to get the sum of the filtered category, however, after reading your blog attentively i got my solution, so thanks a lot once again.