Whether you’re a business owner, a developer, or simply want to work with large amounts of data in Excel, you may be interested in creating separate tables. These can help you sort your data, filter your worksheets, and apply various table formatting styles.
Creating separate tables in Excel is a very simple process that can be done on the fly, or at any time through the table tools section of the ribbon and the Design tab. There are also a few keystroke shortcuts that can make the process easier.
First, select the cells that contain the data you wish to include in your table. Then press the Create Table button and Excel will guess the range of your data and show you the results. If you need to confirm the range that you’ve selected, use the range selector icon on the right hand side of the Where is the data for your table? input field.
If you need to change the range of your data after this step, you can do so by pressing the Adjust range button that will appear in the Table dialog box. Once you’ve changed the range, you can click the OK button to finish converting your data into a table.
Next, you’ll need to name your table. You can do this by using the table’s title, or you can create a descriptive short name for the table. This will improve the readability of any structured references referring to the table.
To name your table, go to the Table Tools design tab and choose Table Name. You can type the table’s title or choose a prefix for your table’s name to make it easier to locate in later files and in Excel formulas.
Once the table is named, you can move to the table’s layout by clicking on the Layout tab under the Table Tools design tab and rearranging the table’s columns. The layout tab will also display the option to add a header row.
Another great feature of table formatting is that any new data you add will automatically absorb the formatting into the cell where it’s added. This is a really useful feature especially when you’re working with long tables and you don’t have time to add all of the different formatting to each column separately.
Moreover, you can change the size of your table at any time by dragging its handle. This is useful if you need to increase or decrease the table’s size, or if you want to cancel the automatic expansion after adding data.
You can also apply filters to your table, which makes it easy to sort and filter your data. Filters can be added to every column, and if you need to apply more than one filter to your table, you can add slicers to your table to select multiple filters at once.
Creating separate tables in excel is an important tool that will enable you to work with your data more efficiently and accurately. It can also help you create more accurate charts and tables, reducing the need to manually adjust values. It can also be used to share your data with other people, allowing them to see your data in a different way.