MS Excel's Top/Bottom Rule Allows for Rapid Data Analysis

MS Excel 2007 has a new feature called data visualization that will allow you to see when data in a worksheet has attained a certain value. You could use this nifty feature to see which departments in your company have attained above-average sales this quarter.

Follow the steps below to learn how:

• Select the data cells you would like to analyze.
   
• Click the Home tab.  
   
• In the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting.  
   
• Select Top/Bottom Rules.  
   
• Click Above Average. 
   
• Click OK.  
   
• All cells with above-average values will appear in red.  

If you would like to see the top 10% performers, follow these steps:  

• Select the columns of data cells you would like to analyze.  
   
• Click the Home tab.  
   
• In the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting.  
   
• Click Top 10%. 
   
• Click the drop-down arrow in the With box and select Custom Format.  
   
• Click the Fill tab and select Yellow under Background Color.  
   
• Click OK two times.

All values in the upper 10% of the range will now be highlighted in yellow.You can use conditional formatting rules in many different ways and watch the results change each time you enter new data into your spreadsheets.

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