S1E2-Table List

Hi, welcome to the second episode of Relax with Excel where you may learn something about Excel but will probably fall asleep.  Then again maybe you’ll learn in your sleep.  In this episode we’re going to cover the basics of an Excel Table.  This was previously known as an Excel list. 

When you’re putting text and numbers into some structured format where the first row is header row that has field names to help describe what the columns are; and the rows afterwards are where actual information is typed in; you might think this is a table.  For example, your first row may have three columns that have column 1 as first name, column 2 as last name and column three as sex. The second row would then have Jane in the first column, Lee in the second column and female in the third column. Rows 3 to say 20 after that would have first names, last names and male or female in columns 1, 2 and 3. 

You might call this a table of information now. Though in a sense it’s correct, in the Excel world this would be a range of data and not necessarily a Table. Or at least not an Excel table. A range of data is just numbers and text that occupy cells in the worksheet, but once this range of data is turned into an Excel table, that is where the magic happens. 

To turn that range of data of our three-col range.  Excel is usually pretty good at recognizing the boundaries and select all the cells that would be included in the table.  Next you could use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + T or if you like to use the Ribbon, go to Insert and then click the Table icon.  Notice that if you hover over the Table icon it would give you a brief description of the Table icon command as well is show you can use the keyboard shortcut to create a table. 

A small window labeled Create Table will appear and confirm if your range of data is what you want and have a checkbox for you to choose whether the first row is a header row or not.  Once you make your selections and click OK, the range of data will most likely change colors.  Usually, the default color is bluish.  The header row takes on a darker blue color with the other rows become an alternating or banded color or light blue and then white. 

Also you should now notice that the top row header fields have a drop down icon on the right of the cell.  This means that filtering is enable for each column so you can filter or sort the data.  This makes it so much easier to analyze your data if it’s a large data set, either by sort item in ascending or descending order. 

Another neat thing about the Excel table is that you can summarize values in each of the columns.  This means you can have a bottom row that will add up all the values in the rows or it can even give you an average of that column.  Just right click anywhere in the table and in the mini menu, select Table and then Totals Row.  The last row with have drop down icons on the right that will give you the option to sum, average, count or even put in some other function like countif. 

The Excel table will expand or contract in size automatically depending on your addition or removal of data for your rows and that’s a benefit when you use the table as a source for other things like a Pivot Table or a chart.  

These are a few of the key benefits of using an Excel Table, and once you create tables out of your range of data, you’ll find Excel Tables one of the best features of Excel. That was a basic explanation of an Excel Table and how to create one in Excel.  If you’re still awake, thanks for getting this far. If you’re asleep, pleasant dreams.