Differences between tables

In your day-to-day work, many of you copy data from a company’s business information system or some spreadsheet where they are exported to create the necessary reports. The problem arises when the data changes. How to trace where the change occurred? What is the difference between a source and a derived table? In the text that follows, you will see how to use the INDEX and MATCH functions, as well as the conditional formatting technique, to highlight the differences between the tables.

Magnifying the content

If you are, as the author of this blog, in “serious” years, then you probably sometimes need close-up glasses because you can’t read those small letters on the product declarations. The same thing can happen with documents on the screen. Fortunately, all MS Office applications have a zoom option. In the text that follows, you will learn how to use it, and you will be able to see a few more nifty tricks for dealing with “small letters”.

Comparison of two worksheets

In practice, it is sometimes necessary to compare the contents of two spreadsheets. With the exception of specialized Excel plugins that can be used for this purpose, the best way to achieve this is with the help of a formula in which we use the IF function or by using conditional formatting. In the text that follows, you will see how to compare the two tables, which are in two spreadsheets, and contain randomly generated numbers.

Comparative review

Sometimes it is necessary to open two Excel files and perform a comparative review. This can be done in several ways but one of the most effective is by using the View Side By Side option. In the text that follows, you will see how this option is used, and as an example, we will take two files containing lists of employees with the value of their salaries in two comparative years.

Current row

Structured tables (Tables) make it much easier for us to work with data. When we convert a range of data into a table and then give it a suitable name, we can easily access each column by specifying its name or a combination of table and column names. By entering a formula in the first cell, it is automatically updated in remaining cells within the column. And what if we don’t want that? What should we do if we need to use the current row value?