Forum Discussion
Filter no choice between number and text
In a table when I put in a filter and I want a number filter EXCEL automatically puts in a text filter and I want a number filter. EXCEL Does not give me a choice. There are blank cells in the column because I have written logic to return a number or,"",. I know that EXCEL recognizes the ,"", as text. I know that if I put in 0s it will give me a number filter but then if I want averages they will be wrong because of adding 0s so I then get a number filter. WHY doesn't EXCEL allow me to make the choice? Is there another way to do it?
- You could change your formula to return a "0", and then us an averageIF formula that ignore's zeros.
Not sure if there are other zero's in your data though.- It should not be so difficult it should be my choice. And adding a 0 also means I will have to add more steps in other places. There are also other advantages to seeing empty cells.
- You could add conditional formatting to the column to highlight blank cells, then filter by color; or create a second column next to the column where you want to continue to see empty cells that adds a 0 so you can use the secondary column to use a number filter. Otherwise, you'll have to live by Excel's limitations.
I can't answer the question why it doesn't give you a choice, because when I went and looked for an example in one of my own spreadsheets, it DID give me a choice. The formula that I have for that column has exactly the same logic as yours, returning either "" or a number. And this image shows what I get in the Dialog box if I ask to filter.
So could you give a more detailed picture (literally or figuratively) of what happens in your situation?
skylanetk So what I have had to do sometimes is change the query setting. For whatever reason sometimes the Columns will be set as Text type. If this is the case then when you query the data into your Excel spreadsheet go to the Query Tools tab on the toolbar.
1. Click Edit
2. The Power Query Editor should pop up
3. Select the columns you need to change to Number type
4. Under the Transform section on the toolbar there is a dropdown for Data Type
5. Select the type you need
- It is my understanding the if more numbers show up in the column then ,"", text responses EXCEL automatically makes the number filter show. The problem comes if the "" text response is the larger then EXCEL automatically chooses the text filter and you don't have a choice. Then you must make your answer in all of the cells in the column numeric. That creates other problems when you say average the numbers in the column.
skylanetk You wrote:
It is my understanding the if more numbers show up in the column then ,"", text responses EXCEL automatically makes the number filter show. The problem comes if the "" text response is the larger then EXCEL automatically chooses the text filter and you don't have a choice. Then you must make your answer in all of the cells in the column numeric. That creates other problems when you say average the numbers in the column.
But my column--the one from which my image of the filter dialog box was taken--has more cells with the "" value than with a numeric value. Yet it's still showing as it is pictured. It's possible we're working with different versions of Excel, I suppose. Mine is the most recent version.
