Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

Data Filters are a very powerful way of analysing tables of data in Excel. Put simply they are a way of reducing the table down to just the items you want to see based on the selections you choose.

For example a simple table like this one, may have several hundred or thousand rows of data. However there may be only a few lines you are interested in. For example you may be only interested in people under the age of 18 or sales amounts that are negative (indicating a refund) or only see sales of red Ferraris.

Turning on the Filters

In Office 2003 Turn on the filters by selecting any cell in your table (contiguous section of data) and selecting Data, Filter, Auto Filter from the menu. (Keystroke ALT D F F)

The arrows will show up as in the next picture.