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Learn Top 10 Excel Features

Last updated on April 16, 2013

Chandoo

Last week, we had a lovely poll on what are your favorite features of Excel? More than 120 people responded to it with various answers. So I did what any data analyst worth his salt would do,

I downloaded all the 120+ comments data
I home brewed a large cup of coffee and started gulping it.
I started analyzing the comments

So here are the top 10 features in Excel according to you.

1. Excel Formulas

63 people (50%) said Formulas are their favorite feature in Excel. Of course, you can say, Formulas & Functions are Excel!!! . They are what Excel is made of. But then again, a surprising fact is very few people actually know how to use formulas. Most people would Excel as a glorified notepad or ledger – just to type data. Once you understand the power of formulas, then you can be an irresistible analyst. Your boss & colleagues will be all over you for insights & information, much like the girls in Axe commercials.

Resources to learn Excel formulas:

2. VBA, Macros & automation

55 people said VBA is what makes them use Excel. VBA stands for Visual Basic for Applications, is a special language that Excel speaks. If you learn this language, you can make Excel do crazy things for you, like generate and email monthly reports automatically while you are busy reading this article.

Macros, little VBA programs are what you write to achieve this. Learning VBA can be quite fun, challenging & extremely rewarding experience. Once you learn VBA, suddenly your company will find you invaluable, thanks to all the time & effort you will be saving due to automation.

Resources to learn VBA:

3. Pivot Tables

53 people said they love Pivot tables. They save you a ton of time, let you create complex reports, charts & calculations all with few clicks. No wonder so many people love them.

Pivot tables are ideal tools for managers & analysts who always have to answer questions like,

What is the trend of sales in last 6 months?
Who are our top 10 customers?
Which button do I press for strong latte?

May be not the last one, but Pivot tables can answer almost any business question if you throw right data at them.

Resources to learn Pivot tables:

4. Lookup Formulas

25 people said lookup formulas (VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH etc.) are their favorite feature of Excel. Lookup formulas help you locate any information in your workbooks based on input criteria. By knowing how to write lookup formulas, you can build dashboards, make interactive charts, create effective models & feel pretty darn awesome.

Resources to learn lookup formulas:

5. Excel Charts

Excel charts help you communicate insights & information with ease. By choosing your charts wisely and formatting them cleanly, you can convey a lot. I guess, most people hate Excel charts (hence it is at 5th position), because they are hard to work with. You can loose a whole afternoon formatting the wedges of a pie chart. But thanks to resources like Chandoo.org, you know better to make a column / bar chart and be done in 5 minutes.

Resources to learn Excel charts:

6. Sorting & Filtering data

If Microsoft ever needs few extra billions of cash, they just have to turn sorting & filtering features in Excel to pay-per-use. These ad-hoc analysis features are so powerful & simple that any aspiring analyst must be fully aware of them.

Resources to learn sorting & filtering features:

7. Conditional formatting

Conditional formatting is a hidden feature in Excel that can make your workbooks sexy. Just add some CF to highlight your data and you will turn boring into interesting. With new features like data bars, color scales & icon sets, conditional formatting is even more powerful.

Resources to learn conditional formatting:

8. Drop down validation & form controls

Right from my 3.5 years old daughter to CEO of a company, Everyone loves to be in control. So how can you make your workbooks interactive, so that end users can control the inputs ?

By using form controls & drop down lists of course.

Resources to learn dropdown lists, form controls:

9. Excel Tables & Structural References

Excel tables, a new feature added in Excel 2007 is a very powerful way to structure, maintain & use tabular data – the bread and butter of any data analysis situation. With tables, you can add or remove data, set up structural references, connect them to external sources (SQL server, ODBC etc.), add them to data models (Excel 2013 onwards), link them to PowerPivot (Excel 2010 onwards), format automatically, filter & sort with ease and still be out of office before lunch break. It is a pity Microsoft did not call them pixie dust or magic mix.

Resources to learn Excel tables:

10. PowerPivot, Data Explorer & Data Analysis features

Although Excel in itself is quite powerful, it struggles to analyze certain types of data,

Combining multiple tables and creating reports from them
Processing data from difference sources and getting output to Excel
What if analysis, scenarios & optimization

This is where add-ins like PowerPivot, Data Explorer and Analysis toolpak come in to picture. They let Excel do more, just like bat-mobile lets batman kick more ass.

Resources to learn more:

Learn all these features & more in one place

If you are looking to master all these top 10 features (and more) in one place, I highly recommend enrolling in my online classes. These training programs offer a step-by-step, in-depth, practical instruction on all areas of Excel, VBA, Dashboards & PowerPivot so that you can be awesome at your work. Click on below links to learn more.

Excel, VBA & Dashboard training programs
Excel & Dashboard training programs
PowerPivot training program (next batch in July, 2013)

Or if you prefer face-to-face training & live in USA, you are in awesome luck. I am visiting USA this summer to conduct advanced excel & dashboards masterclasses in Chicago, New York, Washington DC & Columbus OH.

Click here for details & to book your spot.

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23 Comments
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Tagged under charting, charts, data filters, excel tables, form controls, Learn Excel, macros, Microsoft Excel Conditional Formatting, Microsoft Excel Formulas, pivot tables, powerpivot, solver, sorting, VBA, vlookup
Category: Charts and Graphs, Learn Excel, Power Pivot, VBA Macros

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Excel Challenges

26 Responses to “Get busy this weekend, with OR XOR AND [Excel Homework]”

Stef@n says:

July 29, 2011 at 11:48 am

first solution for AND
The two numbers are in A1 and B1
= SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE (A1+B1*9*9, 9, 1), 8, 0)
regards
Stef@n

Reply
Stef@n says:

July 29, 2011 at 11:50 am

next solution for OR
=1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;1)

regards
Stef@n

Reply
Stef@n says:

July 29, 2011 at 11:52 am

last solution for XOR
=1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;0)

regards
Stef@n

Reply
Irvine says:

July 29, 2011 at 12:26 pm

Or you could make use of the VBA logical operators!

Define the following as custom functions
Public Function BITXOR(x As Long, y As Long)
BITXOR = x Xor y
End Function

Public Function BITAND(x As Long, y As Long)
BITAND = x And y
End Function

Public Function BITOR(x As Long, y As Long)
BITOR = x Or y
End Function

and then use them such:
A B =BITOR(A,B) =BITAND(A,B) =BITXOR(A,B)
0101 0100 0101 0100 0001

Reply
Stef@n says:

July 29, 2011 at 12:46 pm

an another solution for AND
=1*SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;1;0);2;1)

note:
the binary numbers are in A1 and A2 !
regards
Stef@n

Reply
Shair says:

July 29, 2011 at 2:22 pm

I was obviously playing hooky at the beach during the bit-wise math lesson – you lost me at “Understanding bit-wise operations” 🙂

Reply
Anup Agarwal says:

July 30, 2011 at 8:46 am

After looking at the above solutions, I find my solution silly, but still:

For the following formulae,
Row 1: headers,
Row 2: OR
Row 3: AND
Row 4: XOR

Column 1: Input 1
Column 2: Input 2
Column 3: Result

OR
{=SUM(IF(MID(A2,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(A2),1)),1)+MID(B2,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B2),1)),1)>0,1,0)*10^(LEN(A2)-ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B2),1))))}

AND
{=SUM(IF(MID(A3,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(A3),1)),1)+MID(B3,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B3),1)),1)=2,1,0)*10^(LEN(A3)-ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B3),1))))}

XOR
{=SUM(IF(MID(A4,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(A4),1)),1)+MID(B4,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B4),1)),1)=1,1,0)*10^(LEN(A4)-ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B4),1))))}

Reply
Hui... says:

July 31, 2011 at 11:57 pm

@Anup
Please don't consider your solution silly
Firstly, You are the 3rd person to submit an answer
Secondly, The best formula/function is the one that you know and understand.

Reply
Michael Azer says:

August 1, 2011 at 1:40 pm

I think I have a very tedious solution, which people won't have the patience to do except in small numbers.

I used the same problem setup as "Anup Agarwal"

AND =IF(AND(MID(B2,1,1)="1",MID(C2,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,2,1)="1",MID(C2,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,3,1)="1",MID(C2,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,4,1)="1",MID(C2,4,1)="1"),1,0)

OR =IF(OR(MID(B3,1,1)="1",MID(C3,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,2,1)="1",MID(C3,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,3,1)="1",MID(C3,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,4,1)="1",MID(C3,4,1)="1"),1,0)

=IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,1,1)="1",MID(C4,1,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,1,1)="0",MID(C4,1,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,2,1)="1",MID(C4,2,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,2,1)="0",MID(C4,2,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,3,1)="1",MID(C4,3,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,3,1)="0",MID(C4,3,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,4,1)="1",MID(C4,4,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,4,1)="0",MID(C4,4,1)="1")),1,0)

Reply
Michael Azer says:

August 1, 2011 at 1:43 pm

Sorry my last post was totally messed up

AND
=IF(AND(MID(B2,1,1)="1",MID(C2,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,2,1)="1",MID(C2,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,3,1)="1",MID(C2,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,4,1)="1",MID(C2,4,1)="1"),1,0)
OR
=IF(OR(MID(B3,1,1)="1",MID(C3,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,2,1)="1",MID(C3,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,3,1)="1",MID(C3,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,4,1)="1",MID(C3,4,1)="1"),1,0)
XOR
=IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,1,1)="1",MID(C4,1,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,1,1)="0",MID(C4,1,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,2,1)="1",MID(C4,2,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,2,1)="0",MID(C4,2,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,3,1)="1",MID(C4,3,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,3,1)="0",MID(C4,3,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,4,1)="1",MID(C4,4,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,4,1)="0",MID(C4,4,1)="1")),1,0)

Reply
Stephen says:

August 1, 2011 at 1:45 pm

@stefan,
I just couldn't get your solutions to work.
01010101010 + 01010101110 = 02020210120
what am i doing wrong?

Reply
Stephen says:

August 1, 2011 at 1:56 pm

@anup
...I got yours to work!

Reply
Rich says:

August 1, 2011 at 8:17 pm

@Stephen - I get the same, but Stef@an's second solution for AND does work (at least for the test cases I used)

Reply
Stef@n says:

August 2, 2011 at 9:09 am

@ Stephen / Rich
yes , you are right ! - only this works:

OR
=1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;1)
XOR
=1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;0)
AND
=1*SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;1;0);2;1)

Reply
Michael Azer says:

August 3, 2011 at 1:36 pm

@Stef@n - You're answer is really smart, I never knew about the substitute function before. Great Work!

Reply
Stef@n says:

August 3, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Thx Michael 🙂
yes - it is simply easy 😉
if you add 1 and 1 - excel calculate 2
and then you have to substitute the 2 - new = 0 respectively 1

Reply
Rob says:

September 11, 2011 at 4:16 pm

Here is a good resource for people wanting to learn binary and hexadecimal.
http://justwebware.com/bitwise/bitwise.html

Reply
Kyle McGhee says:

January 29, 2012 at 3:57 pm

Three that weren't asked for:
NOT
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,0,3),1,0),3,1)

EQV
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,0,3),2,3),1,0),3,1)

IMP
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1+SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,0,3),1,0),3,1),0,1),2,0)

(was using Daniel Ferry's bitwise file to verify against)

Reply
Q says:

February 27, 2012 at 9:05 am

@ Kyle

Not only takes one parameter and inverts 0 -1 and 1-0

Took out the +A2
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1,0,3),1,0),3,1)

Reply
Richard Tallent says:

November 1, 2012 at 3:57 pm

Great solutions!

I'll add two:

NAND =1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2,2,0)

NOR=1*SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,0,2),1,0),2,1)

Reply
John Fuller says:

August 29, 2014 at 4:15 pm

This will work for binary numbers of any size (although the text format mask will have to have as many zeroes as there are digits in the longest addend)

Assume binary #s are in C35 & C36, then add and format as text in C37:
=TEXT(C36+C35,"000000000000")
-sum- = 101112211112

AND - SUBSTITUTE 0s for 1s in -sum-, then sub 1s for 2s
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(C37,"1","0"),"2","1")

OR - sub 1s for 2s in -sum-
=SUBSTITUTE(C37,"2","1")

XOR - sub 0s for 2s in -sum-
=SUBSTITUTE(C37,"2","0")

Reply
Shane says:

September 21, 2014 at 3:47 am

Just wandered by:

AND:

=SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,1,0)/2

Reply
- xlpadawan says:
  
  September 22, 2014 at 2:22 pm
  
  Clever, Shane. I like that.
  
  Reply
How do I perform a XOR calucation of two binary numbers in excel 2007 - QuestionFocus says:

December 9, 2017 at 2:27 pm

[…] post http://www.excelhero.com/blog/2010/01/5-and-3-is-1.html for examples using Sumproduct, and http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/07/29/bitwise-operations-in-excel/ for examples using Text […]

Reply
Ronald Vonk says:

December 6, 2018 at 12:00 pm

Hi Chandoo,

I am not (yet) really into bitwise calculation, but I am looking for a way to speed up my vba calculation with very big numbers. Would is ben convenient to use bitwise notation for this?

Best regards,

Ronald (the Netherlands)
p.s. love your country!

Reply
- Hui... says:
  
  December 7, 2018 at 4:25 am
  
  @Ronald
  
  I'd suggest asking this in the Chandoo.org Forums
  https://chandoo.org/forum/
  
  Attach a sample file with an example of some data and describe what you want to achieve
  
  Reply

Learn Top 10 Excel Features

Chandoo

1. Excel Formulas

2. VBA, Macros & automation

3. Pivot Tables

4. Lookup Formulas

5. Excel Charts

6. Sorting & Filtering data

7. Conditional formatting

8. Drop down validation & form controls

9. Excel Tables & Structural References

10. PowerPivot, Data Explorer & Data Analysis features

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26 Responses to “Get busy this weekend, with OR XOR AND [Excel Homework]”

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