This week’s hint and tip is about creating a table from your data in Excel and how it makes named ranges more flexible this way than​ just selecting and naming the range of cells. This is on our Basic Excel training course and it covers creating them as well as removing the table formatting. We are going to go through it now below.

Excel Tables in your spreadsheets

In Excel you can name ranges of cells (which we looked at in a previous hint and tip early this year). However if you then add a row of data to this named range, it isn’t included automatically. To overcome this problem, you have to go and amend the named range (Formulas Tab, Name Manager).

However, if you make your data into an Excel Table, when you add a new row of data into your spreadsheet, it is automatically included in the original named range. So, you don’t have to go back and update it manually!

Making your data into an Excel Table

To do this, firstly select a single cell in your data and go to the Insert Tab. Next click on the ‘Table’ option on the ribbon. This will bring up a window showing your data range for your table, click OK. This will now have created your Table.

This is just one example of how Excel Tables can be used, there are lots more which we will look into in another hint and tip.

Take a look below at the video to find out more about Excel Tables and how they can be useful with named ranges. Then try it out using the example spreadsheet below!

Click here to download the example spreadsheet shown in the video to try it out yourself!

We hope you have enjoyed this hint and tip, why not take a look at some previous one on the Excel environment?

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