I had a delegate this week whose Pivot Tables would take any of his numerical data and by default count them rather than sum them. When he asked me why that happened I went through the normal explanation of data v numbers ... which is true. However, in his case there seemed to be no reason behind this phenomenon: his data was clean as he was using my files and no one else had the same problem. He was using a good quality company laptop too.
We both checked on the internet last night and gained nothing from the many discussions on this problem: most of which related to data v numbers I have to say.
This morning I suggested that we look at his Windows Regional etc settings. His default language etc was US English and that seemed to be in order; but I said, let's try this, change it to UK English and see what happens.
Ta daa! For some reason, this change did the trick and now this delegate's Pivot Tables sum his data rather than counting it.
Another success story fromExcelMaster!
Duncan Williamson
14.11.13
Weak in Riyadh
The title's a pun!
Just finished my working week in Riyadh and will be travelling back home in about four hours from now.
DW
12.11.13
Reverse Pivot Magic
UPDATE: 13th September 2019 I can imagine some of my visitors will still find this page of use if they are using a very old version of Excel. However, if you are using Excel 2016 or 2013 or even 2010, you should be able to use a much newer and more powerful technique for unpivoting data. Of course, I already have a page for that and here it is: Power Query Unpivoting
UPDATE: 16th January 2014: I have been using this technique since I last reported and I have found some limitations AND solutions to this reverse pivot technique. I will prepare a page and video to demonstrate what I have found.
2nd December 2013
Watch the video and then imagine that you have downloaded a five year set of financial statements for a company. Nothing wrong with the data or the database they came from but imagine you want to set up a pivot table from them. Probably not possible unless you are lucky enough to have a data provider who has designed their output with this in mind.
Let's cut a long story short: open this file amazon_case_reverse_pivot and try to apply the reverse pivot technique in my video to the data you will see there. Good luck and it will be worth any effort you put into it! PLEASE READ THE NOTES in this work book re copyright ...
I didn't invent this technique but I learned it a couple of weeks ago and used it in earnest just now ... watch the video!
I had a table that had months across the top, years down the left hand side and data in between. What I wanted was the data in a list in three columns:
year month value
transposing, rotating, copying and pasting can give you what you want but it will take a long time. My original table covered all twelve months and five years ...
Reversing a Pivot table is what it's called and this is how to do it:
The video [wpvideo tGsBeRej]
Duncan Williamson
UPDATE: 16th January 2014: I have been using this technique since I last reported and I have found some limitations AND solutions to this reverse pivot technique. I will prepare a page and video to demonstrate what I have found.
2nd December 2013
Watch the video and then imagine that you have downloaded a five year set of financial statements for a company. Nothing wrong with the data or the database they came from but imagine you want to set up a pivot table from them. Probably not possible unless you are lucky enough to have a data provider who has designed their output with this in mind.
Let's cut a long story short: open this file amazon_case_reverse_pivot and try to apply the reverse pivot technique in my video to the data you will see there. Good luck and it will be worth any effort you put into it! PLEASE READ THE NOTES in this work book re copyright ...
I didn't invent this technique but I learned it a couple of weeks ago and used it in earnest just now ... watch the video!
I had a table that had months across the top, years down the left hand side and data in between. What I wanted was the data in a list in three columns:
year month value
transposing, rotating, copying and pasting can give you what you want but it will take a long time. My original table covered all twelve months and five years ...
Reversing a Pivot table is what it's called and this is how to do it:
- Press Alt + D then P to call up the pivot table wizard and select Create a "Multiple Consolidation Ranges PivotTable."
- Select "I will create my own page fields".
- Select your data range and choose 0 page fields
- When you see your pivot table, double click on the intersection of Row Grand and Column Grand, in the bottom right hand corner of your pivot table
- You will be presented with your new table in the form of a list ... that is, from pivot table style to list style ... it's magic!
The video [wpvideo tGsBeRej]
Duncan Williamson
AGGREGATE Function Templates
I know I learned this function a while ago but then I forgot about it. The aggregate function was newly created for Excel 2010 and it provides us with some interesting functionality: overcoming shortfalls in the performance of such functions as AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, LARGE, SMALL and a few more ... 19 of them altogether. The trouble is, good as it is, it is not that simple to apply. What I have done then is to create templates that will help you to use the aggregate function in one or both of the formats in which it might be used.
From the Excel Help File:
Returns an aggregate in a list or database. The AGGREGATE function can apply different aggregate functions to a list or database with the option to ignore hidden rows and error values.
Syntax
Reference form
AGGREGATE(function_num, options, ref1, [ref2], …)
Array form
AGGREGATE(function_num, options, array, [k])
The AGGREGATE function syntax has the following arguments (argument:
Function Number
Required. A number from 1 to 19 that specifies which function to use
Options
Required. A numerical value that determines which values to ignore in the evaluation range for the function
Ref 1
Required. The first numeric argument for functions that take multiple numeric arguments for which you want the aggregate value
Ref 2
Optional. Numeric arguments 2 to 253 for which you want the aggregate value
For functions that take an array, ref1 is an array, an array formula, or a reference to a range of cells for which you want the aggregate value. Ref2 is a second argument that is required for certain functions. The following functions require a ref2 argument:
The AGGREGATE function is designed for columns of data, or vertical ranges. It is not designed for rows of data, or horizontal ranges. For example, when you subtotal a horizontal range using option 1, such as AGGREGATE(1, 1, ref1), hiding a column does not affect the aggregate sum value. But, hiding a row in vertical range does affect the aggregate.
My templates will tell you if you are trying to use the wrong format of aggregate and has then been set up to ensure you don't make any other mistakes when using it. This includes providing combobox guidance for choosing which functions and options you need to use.
The Excel file is available here: aggregate_function ... just click!
All feedback is warmly received as are suggestions for improvement.
Duncan Williamson
From the Excel Help File:
Returns an aggregate in a list or database. The AGGREGATE function can apply different aggregate functions to a list or database with the option to ignore hidden rows and error values.
Syntax
Reference form
AGGREGATE(function_num, options, ref1, [ref2], …)
Array form
AGGREGATE(function_num, options, array, [k])
The AGGREGATE function syntax has the following arguments (argument:
Function Number
Required. A number from 1 to 19 that specifies which function to use
Options
Required. A numerical value that determines which values to ignore in the evaluation range for the function
Ref 1
Required. The first numeric argument for functions that take multiple numeric arguments for which you want the aggregate value
Ref 2
Optional. Numeric arguments 2 to 253 for which you want the aggregate value
For functions that take an array, ref1 is an array, an array formula, or a reference to a range of cells for which you want the aggregate value. Ref2 is a second argument that is required for certain functions. The following functions require a ref2 argument:
- LARGE(array,k)
- SMALL(array,k)
- PERCENTILE.INC(array,k)
- QUARTILE.INC(array,quart)
- PERCENTILE.EXC(array,k)
- QUARTILE.EXC(array,quart)
The AGGREGATE function is designed for columns of data, or vertical ranges. It is not designed for rows of data, or horizontal ranges. For example, when you subtotal a horizontal range using option 1, such as AGGREGATE(1, 1, ref1), hiding a column does not affect the aggregate sum value. But, hiding a row in vertical range does affect the aggregate.
My templates will tell you if you are trying to use the wrong format of aggregate and has then been set up to ensure you don't make any other mistakes when using it. This includes providing combobox guidance for choosing which functions and options you need to use.
The Excel file is available here: aggregate_function ... just click!
All feedback is warmly received as are suggestions for improvement.
Duncan Williamson
11.11.13
Wildcards are Great ... Until THIS Happens!
Wildcards
As I am working away this week, I can be found looking at, opening up, working on a spreadsheet or two. Last night I came across yet another excuse to build an Excel data set. I found the TopTrack 250 and just had to have it: all seven years' worth of day for the top 250 companies according to the Top Track definition. Look here for the 2013 data set.
So I duly copied and pasted the data for 2013 into a spreadsheet and edited it. Having seen that I liked what I had done I then copied over the other six years' worth of data from Top Track. Because the data copied over in a very standard and predictable way, I was able to select all six sheets of the additional data and work on them all concurrently: moving data from one row to another, setting up columns in a better way, lining up the data to make it consistent with what I had already done with the 2013 set. Easy and not too time consuming.
But now the wildcards. On the web site that the data came from they had symbols such as asterisks that pointed to a note that said ... average, estimate ... or something like that. I needed to get rid of them all! As it was late and I wasn't looking carefully, I carried out an edit and replace of * and having pressed Replace All, found that ALL of my data disappeared ... it was doing what a wildcard must do ... in this case, any character was being replaced by nothing! A very hasty Ctrl+Z put everything back to the way it was but I still had to get rid of these symbols.
What to do? Delete every symbol manually? No, there were too many of them. Given that the symbol was in the same place in the cell it was in, at the beginning, I ended up with a formula solution that I entered in a new blank column that I would eventually use to replace the current data:
=IF(LEFT(D6,1)="*",RIGHT(D6,LEN(D6)-1),D6)
Why D6? That's where the first of my data points is in each of the tables I set up. I then copied the formula across to the next cell on the right and then down to the bottom of the table ... it worked a treat.
I remembered that I should have added that there were other symbols in the data in addition to the * and I amended my formula to cope with the ‡ symbol:
=IF(OR(LEFT(D6,1)="*",LEFT(D6,1)="‡"),RIGHT(D6,LEN(D6)-1),D6)
Now I had to copy and paste my edited values as text rather than leaving them in formula format, otherwise I have to leave the original data in the file AND have the edited version. So I just copied and pasted the edited values over the original data and my data were now clean and tidy ... but read on!
Numbers as Text
One problem remained: having replaced these symbols, the result was numbers as text rather than number as number. In this case I did this:
There you are wildcards and paste special to set up a nice, clean table of data copied from the web.
Duncan Williamson
As I am working away this week, I can be found looking at, opening up, working on a spreadsheet or two. Last night I came across yet another excuse to build an Excel data set. I found the TopTrack 250 and just had to have it: all seven years' worth of day for the top 250 companies according to the Top Track definition. Look here for the 2013 data set.
So I duly copied and pasted the data for 2013 into a spreadsheet and edited it. Having seen that I liked what I had done I then copied over the other six years' worth of data from Top Track. Because the data copied over in a very standard and predictable way, I was able to select all six sheets of the additional data and work on them all concurrently: moving data from one row to another, setting up columns in a better way, lining up the data to make it consistent with what I had already done with the 2013 set. Easy and not too time consuming.
But now the wildcards. On the web site that the data came from they had symbols such as asterisks that pointed to a note that said ... average, estimate ... or something like that. I needed to get rid of them all! As it was late and I wasn't looking carefully, I carried out an edit and replace of * and having pressed Replace All, found that ALL of my data disappeared ... it was doing what a wildcard must do ... in this case, any character was being replaced by nothing! A very hasty Ctrl+Z put everything back to the way it was but I still had to get rid of these symbols.
What to do? Delete every symbol manually? No, there were too many of them. Given that the symbol was in the same place in the cell it was in, at the beginning, I ended up with a formula solution that I entered in a new blank column that I would eventually use to replace the current data:
=IF(LEFT(D6,1)="*",RIGHT(D6,LEN(D6)-1),D6)
Why D6? That's where the first of my data points is in each of the tables I set up. I then copied the formula across to the next cell on the right and then down to the bottom of the table ... it worked a treat.
I remembered that I should have added that there were other symbols in the data in addition to the * and I amended my formula to cope with the ‡ symbol:
=IF(OR(LEFT(D6,1)="*",LEFT(D6,1)="‡"),RIGHT(D6,LEN(D6)-1),D6)
Now I had to copy and paste my edited values as text rather than leaving them in formula format, otherwise I have to leave the original data in the file AND have the edited version. So I just copied and pasted the edited values over the original data and my data were now clean and tidy ... but read on!
Numbers as Text
One problem remained: having replaced these symbols, the result was numbers as text rather than number as number. In this case I did this:
- enter 1 in any available cell
- copy that cell
- select the entire range of numbers ... all of them so you miss nothing and don't waste your time selecting just the affected ones if your data set is large like mine
- paste special, multiply
- ta daa! your numbers as text have now become numbers as numbers
- Delete that cell with 1 in it
There you are wildcards and paste special to set up a nice, clean table of data copied from the web.
Duncan Williamson
9.11.13
Oor Wullie
Willie Robertson, Oor Wullie for four hours.
Willie made himself known to me at Bangkok International Airport as we were just two of three people in the Emirates lounge. He said, Its just you and me now. I looked up from my spreadsheet and suggested we start a riot then. He felt a riot was not the answer.
After confirming that it would be fine for us to chat for a while, we got to talking about life, the universe and everything. We are of very similar ages and I gathered from very similar backgrounds: his Dundee upbringing v my West Yorkshire upbringing. The common bond, of course, was my Scottish mother.
I don't normally chat to fellow travellers because they invariably think I want to hear about their aeroplane and airport stories. Thanks, everyone; but you can keep them to yourself.
We spent about four hours together, chewing the cud, putting the world to rights, making pots of green tea and eating desserts. Willie had a couple of glasses of white wine.
He started by telling me that he does competency training in the Oil & Gas industry. I said, I've got a spreadsheet for that!! I have too!
Willie mentioned the book he wrote: On the Milk ... available on Amazon. I checked as we chatted. If I can find a way of getting the book to me I will buy it. It's Willie's story of adolescence in Dundee, involving a milk cart. I asked if he meant horse and cart and as he started to object by saying he was not so old, I said we had a horse and cart milkman well into the 1960s!
He came to reveal his authorship as I vented bile against backpacking gap year people with their dreadful clothes, bad manners and bad habits. I also said white people with dreadlocks looked stupid. He replied by pointing at his own barnet suggesting his dreadlocks weren't too bad. I said there's a difference between your slightly long hair and dreadlocks. Then he said he had grown his hair long in an attempt to look more like an author. Well, that's one way of telling me about his book.
Speaking of colour, later in the evening he told me that Baa Baa Black Sheep has become Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep. I said, you're joking ... Well, I will be baa baa black sheeping all over twitter for a while now. Who are these morons who think they've done something clever. Here's the truth: black sheep really exist, rainbow sheep don't. When I was growing up and raising my own children, baa baa black sheep NEVER conjured up images of racial turmoil. These people are sick.
I told Willie the story of the £80,000 Urinal v Non Urinal sign changes on the toilets in Manchester University. How these things ever get beyond zero is the most mysterious thing.
Then again, what about MARY and her little lamb with its fleece as WHITE as snow? I need a lie down now that I have thought of that. Somebody DO something.
After watching me make my pot of tea he asked if I ever had a drink so I said no and explained why: waking up too early with a thick head had lost its appeal!! Fair enough he said, as he took another swig of his WHITE wine. I then explained how some people try to force me into having a drink ... you can't celebrate with lemonade ... ok, if really want to buy me a beer, feel free ... but I won't drink it. That led to an evening of teasing over the champagne I was missing out on.
I started talking about Andrew Mitchell and William Hague. How they became an MP and then treat it as a vehicle for doing many other things rather than concentrating on representing their constituents. Willie said that whilst he didn't like this Mitchell chap, he had been treated shabbily. I said fair enough but it was clear that he had taken his bike to the wrong gate and had argued with the policemen about it. Normal people wouldn't have argued. Moreover, why did he resign so quickly? Still, he should worry.
At various stages Willie said he would change his shirt before boarding his plane. He never got round to it until a minute before i left for my flight. As I was packing up, he returned, sporting a more normal shirt than his tee shirt. Standards!
For some reason I mentioned the Newsnight programme I watched while I was in London two weeks ago. The one in which Jeremy Paxman was sent to interview Russell Brand. What we got was a rant: why are there poor people, we need to do something about poverty, there is illness in the world and that's wrong ... that's what I heard. I thought, who thought that getting someone with the views of a sixteen year old on Newsnight would be informative and useful in any way? I thought at one stage Brand was going to come out with that Monty Python classic: narcosyndicalist but he didn't. Then I imagined Brand going back to his multi million pound home and lifestyle and stopped worrying about that irksome man.
As we meandered through our views on life, Willie mentioned his time in Romania and how he ended up buying two friendly policemen there a tot of whisky each a two in the morning. Which sparked my own memory of the beautiful (untouched) girls of Bucharest and of the Ceaucescu monstrous building that I walked the circumference of but which I never considered stepping inside of. Along the same lines, when someone suggested in Georgia that we take a detour to go to Gori and sit on the bed that Stalin was born in, I said, drive on!
I was was impressed by the revelation that Willie has £2,000 in £2 coins in a sock under the bed.
A propos nothing I told Willie that I met a British couple one weekend at a resort on Lake Malawi. We chatted about this and that then one of them said, you know, we drove to Zomba and back the other day and we didn't see one WHITE face. Rather odd that, don't you think?!!! How do we let these people out?
So called reality TV got a mauling from Willie. Who are these 19 year olds, Willie wanted to know, who end up on our television screens whilst caterwauling that all they want to do is sing and if they don't win this competition, life is over for them. How about getting a life and working their way around the clubs and theatres like normal people? Of course, most of them warble rather than sing anyway! I added that Willie must never forget that erstwhile cooks on TV cookery competitions all tell us how PASSIONATE they are about food. Then just about all of them start murdering their ingredients and recipes. I really wouldn't want to eat what most of them throw together, would you?
Let me finish with this. Willie talked about his efforts to find someone in the Dundee government machinery who could help and advise him with his work ... like me, he works abroad so he exports his services. He got nowhere, no names of commercial attaches anywhere. I pointed out that William Hague has reformed passport renewal for the UK. If you find yourself abroad with the need to renew your passport, you will find that it will take six WEEKS. That's the death of my business for six weeks then. Stupid, stupid man, Mr Hague.
Well, there you are: the perturbations of two grumpy old men in an airport lounge in Bangkok. Entertaining!
Thank you Oor Willie, I would not have done any of that without you!!
DW
8.11.13
Travelling
Leaving home today for this trip:
Bangkok
Riyadh via Dubai
Bangkok
Kuala Lumpur
Bangkok
Home
There you are!
DW
7.11.13
Here it is but you can't have it
Of late I hace come across this Windows shocker.
Open Windows Explorer and search for something. On average, if it's on your hdd, Windows will find it. However, I have had occasions when I have known something was there but I had to refine the search to get at it.
Sometimes, twice yesterday, this happens ... enter your search term and wait. Windows shows you one or more files so you click one to open it and it says, I kid you not, Windows cannot find that file ... Explain that!
Another Windows Explorer niggle comes when I want to refine my search ab initio by, eg, saying, only find xlsx or pptx files ... usually such a choice is not available to me. Then sometimes it is ... not very often, though.
DW
6.11.13
Tabs? Where are my tabs? I want my taaaaaaabs
Eeessh! Calm down!
So, you know your work book compriees at least two work sheets but you cannot see any tabs at the bottom of your Excel work book.
Click on maximise in the top right hand corner, just in case. If you still cannot see them, try this
Click the office button at the top left, it's either a Windows circle or a rectangle saying File
Click options
Click advanced
Scroll to Display options ...
Select Show sheet tabs if it is not selected
That should solve this problem.
This happened to me yesterday with an old file and since I NEVER deselect show tabs, I just wonder how these things happen!
Duncan Williamson
So, you know your work book compriees at least two work sheets but you cannot see any tabs at the bottom of your Excel work book.
Click on maximise in the top right hand corner, just in case. If you still cannot see them, try this
Click the office button at the top left, it's either a Windows circle or a rectangle saying File
Click options
Click advanced
Scroll to Display options ...
Select Show sheet tabs if it is not selected
That should solve this problem.
This happened to me yesterday with an old file and since I NEVER deselect show tabs, I just wonder how these things happen!
Duncan Williamson
4.11.13
Rejected ... they didn't like my cake ; (
I signed up to an online photo storage/selling site and so far I have uploaded a few photos and they have been accepted. I had one rejected last week because it contained the name of an hotel, fair enough.
Now, make your own mind up: why do you think this photo was rejected today? I have no idea!
Well, I'd show you the photo if I could but Blogger won't let me upload it for some reason. I'll find a work around soon!
DW
3.11.13
2.11.13
New App
I have finally managed to install the Blogger App on my Galaxy Tab. Editing seems to be a problem with it. Once I press finished, published or not, I think I can't edit a post.
So forgive all errors and omissions.
DW
The Master Bedroom
We have bought and had fitted the curtains for our bedroom now. The bedding doesn't quite match, however! There's time for that :)
1.11.13
Puppies ar Six Weeks
Well, one of the two puppies. Stewart (!) Followed me to the lake on the motorbike just as I had stopped to admire some Buffalo taking a dip.
Stewart was fascinated and showed no fear if the water or the steeply sloping bank. He was half submerged at one point!
Here he is, then, six weeks old ...
Misbehaving in a cell? UPDATE
I wonder if this is a feature, a bug or a coincidence within 24 hours of uploading this post it happened again ... see below8w.
Last week I was working on a file in Excel and one aspect the work was to use the COUNTIFS () function. I know this function and have used and demonstrated it many times. Would it work? Yes it did and then it point blank refused.
Yesterday a friend asked me about setting up hyperlinks in an Excel file and then saving that file as a Web Page before uploading it on to an intranet. I set to work and created two basic hyperlinks, saved as Web Page ... one link worked and one didn't. I corrected the error, saved the file again. Did the correction work? Not at all. I went back and checked my work but still it didn't work.
Is there a theme here? Yes!
In both cases, when I deleted the error completely and started again from scratch I got rid of the errors, no amount of editing in these cases looked as if it would work.
UPDATE
This morning I was working through some lookup examples that included a complex formula that included INDEX, ROW and should have been array entered. I copied and pasted an example formula that I knew would not work. Then I edited the formula but just could not make it work. So I started again I a new cell and bingo, it worked.
If something you KNOW is correct is not working: delete, start again.
Let me know if this worked for you too.
Duncan Williamson
Last week I was working on a file in Excel and one aspect the work was to use the COUNTIFS () function. I know this function and have used and demonstrated it many times. Would it work? Yes it did and then it point blank refused.
Yesterday a friend asked me about setting up hyperlinks in an Excel file and then saving that file as a Web Page before uploading it on to an intranet. I set to work and created two basic hyperlinks, saved as Web Page ... one link worked and one didn't. I corrected the error, saved the file again. Did the correction work? Not at all. I went back and checked my work but still it didn't work.
Is there a theme here? Yes!
In both cases, when I deleted the error completely and started again from scratch I got rid of the errors, no amount of editing in these cases looked as if it would work.
UPDATE
This morning I was working through some lookup examples that included a complex formula that included INDEX, ROW and should have been array entered. I copied and pasted an example formula that I knew would not work. Then I edited the formula but just could not make it work. So I started again I a new cell and bingo, it worked.
If something you KNOW is correct is not working: delete, start again.
Let me know if this worked for you too.
Duncan Williamson
29.10.13
We're in
The builder's finished and we have moved in. We built our last piece of furniture last night ... A wardrobe ... Big! It took 3".5hours to build.
Looking good overall I have to say!
DW
London Bound
I start a long trek to London today. Because of bus times I leave here in about two hours, one night in Bangkok then hop over to Kuala Lumpur for the direct flight to Heathrow.
This is all for work.
DW
Wonderful Technology
Yes, modern technology is wonderful, so where have I been, where are my latest posts?
There are two posts firmly rooted in my blogger outbox. I tried to create other posts whilst I was travelling.
Technology is wonderful but just try being a little off centre in your demands and you might as well be trying to use the internet on the moon!
DW
9.10.13
We're in ... Almost
The house is almost ready but not quite. I said, I can't wait much longer. Living in a room in someone else's house, taking up space, trying to keep out of their way as much as possible.
So, we've moved into bedroom two was three and we sleep there. As work goes on, we spend the day in the house with the family.
Every time I look at the jobs that need to be done I see another week or two to wait.
Now, though, I spend my evenings in the new room and the nights snoozing in it!
Here is a photo of what I can see from the bed ... iPad camera, poor quality.
No curtains yet!
DW
29.9.13
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