The Case:
You are dealing with a large amount of financial data or number contained data. You need to sort the data based on any criteria from the column heading. Coloring the row and column would probably entertain you, but it won’t give any benefit on the actual data manipulation. Usually you would select every column and make a sorting from the selection. But what you have is more than a dozen of column, and you want to make a different sorting scenario for each column. Going into the usual way would be so troublesome. You need a more efficient way to do the job.
Tune Up:
If the data is already in a worksheet, first select all of the cells containing the information you want to sort out (including the header if you have already one), and then simply hit Ctrl-L. Click OK and it’s done!
Now you can see some new buttons appear on the right side of each column header. You can use those to sort your data based on each column. There is no need to re-select the cells and re-apply the sorting command for each column; you are only required to do it once. If you wish to expand the cell range, use the fill handle at the bottom right corner of the cell to drag the whole list across adjacent cells. You can insert a column or row from the right click menu.
There are some interesting function you can try. You can sort your data based on three consecutive criteria, show only your Top N data, make a table from it, etc.
And there is very useful ‘Toggle Total Row’ button you can try. Not only for counting total, but also average, minimum, standard deviation etc.
This tips apply for all version of MS Excel. But you cannot find the Excel List feature in the new Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Ribbon however. It has been renamed into Excel tables. You can find it on the Home tab, in the Styles group. Click Format as Table, and then select the format that you want to use for your table.
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