14. Summarizing Data Using Subtotals or Filter

The Subtotal command was added way back in Excel 97. Not enough people realize that the command is in Excel, and those who have tried it often don’t realize how powerful the command truly is. I used to have a regular gig as the Excel guy on Leo Laporte’s Call for Help television show. During one appearance, I showed people how to use the Subtotal command. I figured it was probably the most boring six minutes of television in the history of the world. However, that one show generated more fan email than any other. People wrote to say that they had been spending two hours every day adding subtotals manually, and now they used the trick from the show to reduce the task to a minute.

Filtering enables ...

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