Up Up and Array!: Dynamic Array Formulas for Excel 365 and Beyond

Book Description

Understand the power of dynamic arrays: a single formula can generate new and vastly more efficient spreadsheet possibilities. This book introduces spreadsheet users to dynamic array functions in Microsoft Excel 365, defines and details the distinctive ways in which they work, and shows how they can be applied to a wide swath of data-analytic tasks.

While array formulas and functions have long held a place in the spreadsheet toolbox (although, for many of us, shunted to an obscure corner), the dynamic array engine offers a more user-friendly and intelligible set of means for manipulating spreadsheet data in the array mode. The single-formula, multi-cell capability of dynamic arrays has been extended to nearly all existing spreadsheet functions, offering a new, default way of working. As a result, many tasks can now be executed with dynamic arrays without having to resort to the new functions at all.

After defining arrays and dynamic array formulas, this book helps you examine the dynamic array property of lifting and how it impacts the formulas, including those written with existing functions. Plenty of illustrations and formulas along the way help you get comfortable using them. From there, you will learn Excel 365’s new dynamic functions, including the 14 currently in rollout, each accompanied by instructive examples. In many cases, the examples demonstrate how the new functions can work with long-available functions, such as MID, IF, COUNTIF, etc., which now also boast dynamic array functionality.

What You Will Learn

• Unlock the dynamic array potential in Microsoft Excel
• Apply dynamic array functions and confidently direct them to real-world spreadsheet tasks
• Know the distinctive ways in which arrays work and can be applied to numerous data-analytic tasks

Who This Book Is For

Users of Excel 365 and beyond who are comfortable with, but not necessarily expert in, formula writing, as well as those who are unaware of or not fluent with dynamic arrays. It is also valuable to data journalists and other professionals in need of spreadsheet skills who may unaware of dynamic arrays, and the time they could save by applying them to their work.

Table of contents

Cover
Front Matter
1. What’s an Array, Anyway?
2. Array Formula Basics
3. Dynamic Arrays: Time for Some Heavy Lifting
4. The SEQUENCE Function: Made to Order
5. UNIQUE: A Singular Function
6. SORT and SORTBY: The ABCs (and the CBAs)
7. The FILTER Function: Cutting the Data Down to Size
8. RANDARRAY: Unpredictably Useful
9. The Implicit Intersection Operator: The Function You’ll Probably Never Use
10. TEXTSPLIT, TEXTBEFORE, and TEXTAFTER: Putting Words in Their Places
11. TOCOL and TOROW: Straightening Out the Data
12. WRAPCOLS and WRAPROWS: Giving Some Direction to the Data
13. VSTACK and HSTACK: What They’re About
14. CHOOSECOLS and CHOOSEROWS: Less Is More
15. TAKE and DROP: Selecting and Rejecting the Data
16. EXPAND: Bulking Up the Data
Back Matter

About The Author

Abbott Ira Katz