There is a great new feature in Excel 2013 that makes my life so much easier now; flash fill!
If you have ever had to use text to columns, concatenate function, or large nested functions trying to extract the data you need from a column then flash fill will impress you. Here is a simple example of how it works:
You have names in column A that you would like separated into 2 columns:
- Beside the first entry in column B enter the data you require
- Highlight from the first name entered all the way down to the end of the data
- Select Home (tab) | Editing (group) | Fill (button) | Flash Fill (button)
- The names are filled down
Note: you can also double-click the fill handle to fill down, then select the smart tag to modify teh fill to Flash Fill.
Formatting can be changed using flash fill. Simply enter teh first row and use flash fill to complete the rest of the list.
