Spreadsheet applications have become quite popularly used nowadays, especially when it comes to doing accounting work where you have to deal with so many figures at hand. Microsoft Excel has become one of the most popular spreadsheet applications used all over the world. Not only is it very convenient and user-friendly to use, it also comes with commands and functions that can make data analysis and data storage very effective on your part. Moreover, there are so many ways to find in Excel certain data that you have stored. This is important to note because the Excel processor, after all, has so many cells that would surely contain your multitude of data.

The single Excel file contains 16,777,216 million cells, and this is at its minimum since there are different versions of the spreadsheet application itself. Moreover, each cell can also contain any figure reaching 32,767 characters. The number of worksheets that you can create in a single Excel file is limitless as well, so as long as your computer’s memory can handle the file itself. When you have such a file, obviously, searching for particular data can be pretty daunting and frustrating on any person. Fortunately, Excel’s search function is more than capable enough to handle such a huge task. It even makes the search process simple.

One amazing and incredibly practical command integrated in this spreadsheet application is the Find and Replace function. This can be found in the Edit tab of the application. The great thing about this function is that it gives you a lot of options so that you can make your search for a particular text content or number more precise. Basically, these options help narrow down your search, so to speak. Once you activate the Find and Replace dialogue box, you then type the numbers or characters that you want to find. After which, you then click the Find All button and Excel’s built-in search engine will present to you all cells that contain that text or number you are looking for. These cells would contain the text or number in question, whether this is independent or part of a set of numbers or even that of a whole word.

For example, you want to look for the number “32″ in all of the cells in your Excel file. Even the cells that contain the array of numbers “45.432″ would be presented. The first highlighted cell is actually the first cell that contains the number in question. Once you hit the Find Next tab, you will then reach the next cell where the character in question appears again.

Another great thing is that you can search through all of the worksheets within a single file. You are given several options to narrow down your search; you can choose to search by row, or by column, or through the values, formulas, or comments contained by the cells themselves.

There are indeed so many convenient ways provided to find in Excel files. By learning the basics, you can maximize the use of your spreadsheet application in no time at all.

Data in a MS Excel spreadsheet is usually presented in headed columns, i.e. in two dimensions: You read across to find the column you are interested in, and then you read down for the data. You might sort and filter this to find data more quickly.

Sometimes your query might be more complex. For example, you want the information in column B, for a particular range of values within column A, over a particular time period. Using filtering and sorting, this might take quite a while to figure out.

What a pivot table does

When you make a pivot table, you are in effect creating another table using the headings from your original data. This allows for much more complex analysis, while remaining fairly straightforward to view and understand.

First steps

Data must be formatted before you can put it into a pivot table. Ensure that there are no gaps, and no empty cells (run “find and replace”, filling all empty cells with “NULL” or something similar). The data must also be “flattened”, meaning all formulae should be removed. This can be achieved by selecting the whole dataset (ctrl + a), copy (ctrl +c), and then right-click and use the paste special function. Paste the data as “values only”.

You should also check for any obvious outliers. Use the A-Z and Z-A sorting functions to check for any obvious errors.

Building the table

In a separate worksheet, go to the toolbar and click “data”, then “pivot table and pivot chart report”. Follow the instructions to create a pivot table. Essentially, you just need to select the whole dataset and create the pivot table in your new worksheet.

Using the table

All the column headers from your dataset should appear in a control box on the right of the screen. You can drag-and-drop these into fields on your table.

The table has four parts. At the top of the page, you can list broad groups, which can be filtered; for example, if you were interested in data for a particular month, you might put the year at the top of the page, and select only the current year. You can do this by clicking the arrow to the right of the heading, and checking the appropriate boxes.

The column and row fields function as you would expect, and with a bit of practice you will find that the data can be combined and presented in a variety of ways.

You can not drag just anything into the data field; for example suppose you had put months in the left column, and revenue across the top. You can’t drag “year” into the data field. “Transactions”, or “Sales”, would make more sense.

If you right-click row or column header in the pivot table, and click “field settings”, you can select how you would like the data presented: As an average, sum, count, etc.Of course there is much more to learn, but the advice in this article should be enough to get you started creating pivot tables of your own, and saving the time you currently spend trawling through spreadsheets!