Jim from Montreal calls in wondering why the AutoFilter dropdowns changed radically in Excel 2007. Episode 439 takes a look at the old AutoFilter, and the new AutoFilter.
This blog is the video netcast companion to the books Learn Excel from MrExcel and Excel 2007 Miracle Made Easy. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn a tip for both versions of Excel!
This blog is the video netcast companion to the books Learn Excel from MrExcel and Excel 2007 Miracle Made Easy. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn a tip for both versions of Excel!
Transcript of the video:
Hey! Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Today, we have a viewer Colin.
Now, if you would like to call in, a couple of ways to do this if you're in the United States, you can call the toll free number 865-581-0221.
It leads to voicemail just say hey, this is Joe from Chicago and give your Excel question.
Someone pointed out, that's very inconvenient for everyone else around the world.
If you happen to have a Skype phone and the Skype service you can call me.
It's b i l l j e l e n Only 1 L in Jelen and everyone messes that up.
And leave a voicemail there and we also have a new Skype in number.
For people in the U.K, this is a London-based number.
020-7871-4957.
On those last four digits. That's four xls if your skype phone has the letters on the number.
I just call in and leave your question on a voicemail will get to it on a future podcast.
I'd love to have calls because that gives me a chance to answer.
Real life questions from folks out there watching the podcast.
So, here's our call for today.
Man on call: Hi! Bill. It's Jim from Montreal.
I should check the tryout Excel 2007.
I've been there, one of their technology stores over here.
And I use the auto-filter a lot, and I notice that they've changed the old filter.
I mean, behave more lately.
Did it drop down?
Where you can, I wish I'd un-check values and check the values.
I suppose to like office 2003, wish to type of this device ditches once we people to custom.
Is the way it is or is it?
They're different ways.
Hey, Jim!
That's a great call and this is a clear situation, where what's a brand new feature for some people is really going to hack some other people off.
Now, if you've never used the auto-filter, let's take a look at how it works in the old version of Excel.
Basically, select one cell in your data set.
You'll go into data, filter and then choose auto filter and Excel will add a little drop down to the top of every column.
Now, the drop-down has a list of all the values in the column at least the first 1,000 values, that finds in the comment.
So, if you just want to see records for one particular customer.
It's really simple to go there and select that customer and see just those records.
Simple enough, one of the questions I get in the power Excel seminars.
What if I need to see records for to customers or three customers?
Well, it became much more difficult to do that.
You would have to go in and say that we wanted a custom filter and then I could say where the customer was Air Canada or equals Bell Canada.
Click [ ok ] and then I'd see the super set of both of those customers.
If I needed to do three or more customers.
Though, I was completely out of luck.
I had to switch over to the advanced filter, which is really one of the hard things to use.
Now, let's go take a look at Excel 2007 and how Microsoft's solve that problem in Excel 2007, when you turn on the auto filters?
You'll see that it looks kind of like, the new pivot table drop down as Jim mentioned.
Where we have a list of all the different customers, and if we want to select just one.
It becomes much more difficult on the face of it.
The first thing you have to do is click the checkbox or select all and that unselect all of the customers, and then select the one customer that you want and click [ ok ].
So, what used to be one, click in Excel 2003 has now turned into three clicks in Excel 2007.
The one great advantage though, with this new auto-filter is the ability to easily select, three, four, five, six customers from the list without having to resort to the custom and joining things together with Boolean logic.
Click [ ok ] and there's a set of all those customers.
So, well we have a feature that I thought was pretty good and handles those obscure questions where you need to choose three, four or five things from the auto filter.
I can see that if you're a regular user of the auto filter and usually go through and select just one customer, this is going to seem like three times as much work as it was in the old version of Excel.
Thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Today, we have a viewer Colin.
Now, if you would like to call in, a couple of ways to do this if you're in the United States, you can call the toll free number 865-581-0221.
It leads to voicemail just say hey, this is Joe from Chicago and give your Excel question.
Someone pointed out, that's very inconvenient for everyone else around the world.
If you happen to have a Skype phone and the Skype service you can call me.
It's b i l l j e l e n Only 1 L in Jelen and everyone messes that up.
And leave a voicemail there and we also have a new Skype in number.
For people in the U.K, this is a London-based number.
020-7871-4957.
On those last four digits. That's four xls if your skype phone has the letters on the number.
I just call in and leave your question on a voicemail will get to it on a future podcast.
I'd love to have calls because that gives me a chance to answer.
Real life questions from folks out there watching the podcast.
So, here's our call for today.
Man on call: Hi! Bill. It's Jim from Montreal.
I should check the tryout Excel 2007.
I've been there, one of their technology stores over here.
And I use the auto-filter a lot, and I notice that they've changed the old filter.
I mean, behave more lately.
Did it drop down?
Where you can, I wish I'd un-check values and check the values.
I suppose to like office 2003, wish to type of this device ditches once we people to custom.
Is the way it is or is it?
They're different ways.
Hey, Jim!
That's a great call and this is a clear situation, where what's a brand new feature for some people is really going to hack some other people off.
Now, if you've never used the auto-filter, let's take a look at how it works in the old version of Excel.
Basically, select one cell in your data set.
You'll go into data, filter and then choose auto filter and Excel will add a little drop down to the top of every column.
Now, the drop-down has a list of all the values in the column at least the first 1,000 values, that finds in the comment.
So, if you just want to see records for one particular customer.
It's really simple to go there and select that customer and see just those records.
Simple enough, one of the questions I get in the power Excel seminars.
What if I need to see records for to customers or three customers?
Well, it became much more difficult to do that.
You would have to go in and say that we wanted a custom filter and then I could say where the customer was Air Canada or equals Bell Canada.
Click [ ok ] and then I'd see the super set of both of those customers.
If I needed to do three or more customers.
Though, I was completely out of luck.
I had to switch over to the advanced filter, which is really one of the hard things to use.
Now, let's go take a look at Excel 2007 and how Microsoft's solve that problem in Excel 2007, when you turn on the auto filters?
You'll see that it looks kind of like, the new pivot table drop down as Jim mentioned.
Where we have a list of all the different customers, and if we want to select just one.
It becomes much more difficult on the face of it.
The first thing you have to do is click the checkbox or select all and that unselect all of the customers, and then select the one customer that you want and click [ ok ].
So, what used to be one, click in Excel 2003 has now turned into three clicks in Excel 2007.
The one great advantage though, with this new auto-filter is the ability to easily select, three, four, five, six customers from the list without having to resort to the custom and joining things together with Boolean logic.
Click [ ok ] and there's a set of all those customers.
So, well we have a feature that I thought was pretty good and handles those obscure questions where you need to choose three, four or five things from the auto filter.
I can see that if you're a regular user of the auto filter and usually go through and select just one customer, this is going to seem like three times as much work as it was in the old version of Excel.
Thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
