Bears get angry when other analysts don't use Excel Tables

For those who don't want to read:

Use Tables in Excel.  

They will make your life easier and save you time.

Is there a large contingency of  daily, heavy-use Excel jockeys that do not know about - or purposefully do not use (even worse!) - Excel Tables (aka Excel Lists for those still running 2003) when creating datasets in Excel workbooks?

If you don't know what a Table is in Excel let me help you:

1. Open a workbook with a data table in it, preferably with the data organized in columns.
2. Select the data including the header.
3. Hit Ctrl-N, T (alternatively Insert>Table).  Make sure the "My table has headers" checkbox is checked.
4. Hit OK
5. Congrats, you just created an Excel table.

Excel Tables make life as an analyst a breeze.  Want to add data to the table?  No sweat just start typing in the row or column next to the table.  Excel will auto-expand the table dimensions to incorporate the new data.    

If you have a Pivot Table linked to a data table, just hit refresh and your PivotTable will capture new data.  No need to manually update the data range that links to the pivot table.

Pretty table

Excel tables make lookup formulas a breeze as well.  The structured references may be intimidating at first, but take the plunge - you'll enjoy it!  No longer will you have to adjust ranges in formulas after additional rows/columns have been added to the set - the Table will auto-update for you!  Boom, time Saver! 

Another added perk of tables is the auto fill down feature.  When you create a formula in the first row of the data table (that is, the first row below the header), the table will auto-fill down the formula for the entire column in the range.  

E.g. Let's say you create a formula in Cell B2, which pulls the first 2 letters of the Cell in A2.  You've already created a table from your data set called, "Table.Data", with the first column labeled, "FirstCol" (original, I know).

To create your formula you would write it as you normally would:

=Left(A1,2)

Now Excel, depending on how your options are set, should create a formula like so (for Excel 2010):

=LEFT([@FirstCol],2)

The "@" tells the formula to find the data in This Row (this row being row 2), and FirstCol tells the formula to find the data in the "FirstCol" column of the data set.

Now depending on the number of rows you have in your Table "Table.Data", the formula you just created will auto fill down.  Pretty slick.

There's also a laundry list of formatting options available as well, plus the ability to create your formatting templates for future use.

I could go on and on, but I gotta go eat a seal or 3.  Here's the file used in the above example.