Manually Apply Groups

September 21, 2022 - by Bill Jelen

Problem: Those group and outline symbols shown in the last topic are cool. Is there any other way to get those? Can I apply them without using subtotals?

Strategy: You just select columns or rows to be grouped and select Data, Group. It is fairly tedious to add many groupings, but this can be easier than continually hiding and unhiding rows or columns.

Below, select the entire column for Jan, Feb, and Mar and click the Group icon on the Data tab. Excel will group those 3 columns and assumes the next column is the summary of those columns.

An example of horizontal group and outline buttons. Jan, Feb, and Mar in B:D are summarized by a Q1 total in E. A minus sign button in E will collapse the months in B through D. — Figure 704. Grouping Jan, Feb, Mar into an existing Q1 column.

Repeat this to group April, May, and June into Q2; July, August, September into Q3; and October, November, and December into Q4. The result is that you can quickly toggle from monthly to quarterly views by using the 1 or 2 buttons.

Instead of using the four individual Minus sign icons for the four quarters, use the Number 1 Group and Outline button to collapse all four quarters at once. This time, there are only two Group and Outline buttons, labeled 1 and 2. They are found above and to the left of the grid. (They are directly above the row numbers 1, 2, 3 and to the left and above the column label for A. — Figure 705. Use the 1 button to collapse.

This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel

Title photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash