- Decide what information you want to extract from your data in Excel
- For example, you may want to know which employee made the highest sales this month
- Or, which has been the best selling product during the last six months
- Or, maybe you want to know about all the stationery products you purchased and their name begins with 'p'!
Before you bgin using the Autofilter feature in Excel, it is recommended to keep the following points in mind:
- The top row of each Excel column should have a heading that describes the contents of the column, such as "Item" or "Unit Price".
- The data in each column should all be of one type only. Do not mix text in a column with numbers, or numbers in a column with dates.
- Excel data should not be interrupted by blank rows or blank columns. Individual blank cells are okay.
- The data you want to filter should be on its own Excel worksheet. If that's not possible, it should be separated from other data by a blank row or blank column.
The Excel training video below demonstrates the use of Autofilter in Excel:
Click inside your data
Click on 'Data' on the menu bar
Select Filter and then AutoFilter
Drop-Down-Arrows appear next to your headers
Now you can define the filter criteria by clicking on the drop-down-arrows
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