Automating filtering

The Custom Views feature can apply one or more filters at once, rather than you having to do so individually. First, we’ll briefly look at the Filter command. Many Excel users are familiar with the Sort command, which physically rearranges data within a list. Conversely, the Filter feature displays a subset of information in a list, thus hiding rows with data that doesn’t match the filter.

Let’s filter the list shown in Figure 8.12 for beaches greater than 100 kilometers in length:

1. Activate the Filtering worksheet of this chapter’s example workbook and select any cell within the list.

Tip

There are only a few instances in Excel where it’s necessary to select an entire list before filtering, such as when a list contains blank rows or blank columns. Another instance that comes to mind is when a list contains three or more header rows. In that case, you’ll want to select from the last header row down through...