This month, we’ll cover solutions to potential issues involving filtering. When you sort data, you’re rearranging it by criteria such as highest to lowest. Everything in a sorted set of data shifts around, but it all still appears. Filtering, however, temporarily hides data that doesn’t fit your filtering criteria. Filter for salespeople who made the quota, for example, and Excel will hide any salespeople who missed the target number. Then you can work with only the filtered data with operations such as printing, searching, and more

When you’re ready to start filtering, go to

Why does my filter seem to be taking out more data than it should? I’m trying to filter out sales below $1,000, but I know I’m missing some figures that exceed that.

Check whether you have another filter in place. Filters build on each other, reducing the visible data. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve already filtered one column to hide all sales that occurred before August 1. Even if a sale on July 30 exceeded $1,000, it’s hidden by the first filter.

I want to filter a column by text in the cells, but when I click the arrow button at the top of the column, the drop-down list shows only an option for Number Filters.

You probably have a mix of data types in the column, such as some cells formatted as text and some formatted as numbers. Excel filters act on only one type of data, and they default to the format most common in your selected column. Filtering also works with cells containing times, but you see that option only on columns filled with mostly times.

I know I filtered a block of data, but I can’t remember the criteria I used.

On filtered columns, the arrow button at the top of the column includes a small funnel image. Rest your mouse pointer over the button for a pop-up label that shows the sort criteria in effect.

What’s the fastest way to filter a huge list of sales transactions to hide everything except sales involving our Gizmonator 2008 product?

Click the filter arrow at the top of the column that includes the name of the product in each transaction. The main section of the drop-down list lists every text value that appears at least once in the column. To instantly filter out anything except cells containing a single target value, click the box beside the Select All button to deselect all the values. Then scroll down to the one you want to sort by, click the box beside it, and click OK.

When I performed a filter operation, one of my charts lost most of its data. What’s going on?

Excel’s charts can’t see data when it’s filtered out. In some cases, that could leave a chart almost unreadable, or at least not very informative. But as soon as you remove the filter, the chart will pop back into shape.

This is probably a good time to ask a dumb question: How do I remove a filter?

It’s easy. Just click the funnel/arrow button at the top of the column and choose Clear Filter From (Column Name).

My filter is set to hide figures below $10,000. But even after I just edited a cell’s number to be below that mark, it’s still visible.

The filter is still in effect, but you have to reapply it to account for the updated data. Click anywhere in the worksheet and then go to the Data tab’s Sort & Filter section and click Reapply.

I’m looking for a way filtering can help me watch upcoming project deadlines.

While Excel isn’t a true project-management program, its filters can help you see the day’s jobs each morning when you open the workbook. Set this up by filtering deadline dates with criteria such as Today, Tomorrow, and Next Week. (These options will be available in the filter drop-down list of a column containing mostly dates.) If you leave the filter in place, it changes the filtered data accordingly when the date changes. So when you open the workbook on a new day (or week or month), you’ll see different information in the data table.