More AutoFilter Tricks

When Excel 2007 debuted, it brought with it Enhanced Functionality to the AutoFilter tool. If you have a database or table with headings in the top row, you can use AutoFilter to do some very amazing, On-the-Fly feats!

First of all, let’s turn our data into a Table by selecting any single cell within the database, and clicking Ctrl+T. Bamm, we have a formatted table with AutoFilter turned on!

In older versions of Excel, your Autofilter choices were pretty limited, but with Excel 2007 and Excel 2010, you have a much greater variety of options available. For instance:

• With Text Fields, you can use the built-in Text Filters to display cells that Start with, End with, or Contain the text of your choice.

• With Date Fields, you can easily use the Date Filters to sort for records from Last Month, This Month, Next Quarter, or nearly any parameter you can imagine. If you do not see it as a premade option, you can simply create a Custom Autofilter to suit your needs.

• With Numeric Fields, you can use the Number Filters to identify Above Average and Below Average, in addition to the choices in earlier versions of Excel.

• If you have used Color to highlight some of your records, you can even Filter by Color with the dropdown feature (this will Wow them in the boardroom)!

AutoFilter, a fabulous tool for On-the-Fly manipulation of your data. Try some of these Cool Autofilter Features today!