How to Use Groups to Manage Large Data Sets Easily in Your Excel

In an Excel worksheet, if you have a lot of data and information, the interface will be in a mess. Thus, you can add groups to classify your data and information.

In Excel, you can also add groups to your information. And with groups, you can manage your Excel better. In this image below, there are the sales volumes of the product of each month and the subtotal of each season.

And for such a worksheet, you can add groups into the worksheet.

Add Groups

The groups feature is very smart in Excel. And if the information has the similar attributes, you can add groups quickly.

1. Click the “Data” tab in the ribbon.
2. And then click the small arrow under the button “Groups”.
3. In the drop-down menu, choose the option “Auto Outline”.

And then you will find that the outline will appear in the worksheet. Thus, you can click the buttons on the left to hide or show the details.

On the other hand, you can also add groups manually.

1. Click the small arrow to open the outline settings.
2. In the “Settings” window, check the option “Summary rows below detail”. Besides, if the subtotal line locates over the details, you need to uncheck this option. And in this example, we check the option.
3. And then click “OK”.
4. Select the area that you want to add group. And here we select the first three month and the corresponding sales volume.
5. Click the arrow under the button “Group”.
6. Then choose the option “Group…” in the menu.
7. And then in the pop-up window, choose the option “Rows”.
8. Next click “OK”.

Thus, you have added the group for one season.

You can repeat the step 4-8 and create groups for other seasons.

Delete Groups

It is very easy to delete groups in Excel.

1. Click the small arrow under the “Ungroup” button in the “Data” tab.
2. In the menu, click the option “Clear Outline”. And then all the groups will be deleted at once.
3. And if you want to clear a group, you can select the target area.
4. Then click the button “Ungroup”.
5. In the “Ungroup” window, choose the “Row”.
6. Then click “OK”. Thus, the selected group will disappear.

Hide Outline Symbols

If now you need to hide the outline symbol on the left, you can use the following ways.

1. Click “File” in the ribbon.
2. Then click “Options”.
3. In the new window, click “Advanced”.
4. Then drag the scrollbar and come to the “Display options for this worksheet” part.
5. Uncheck the “Show outline symbols if an outline is applied”.
6. Next click “OK”. And then you will find that the symbols will hide.

In addition, you can also use the shortcut key “Ctrl +8” to hide or show the symbols. And this is more convenient.

Virus can Affect Groups that You Have Created

If you suffer from virus or malware, it is possible that the groups in Excel will be damaged. Therefore, the Excel repair software is your best choice in such condition. With it, you can retrieve almost all the information in Excel.

Author Introduction:

Anna Ma is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including word recovery and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com