how to organize data

**sanlen** · 09-17-2010, 12:13 PM

Hi,

I have exactly 101 columns and 203 rows in my excel sheet. The number of columns & rows might be increased sometime very soon. I do not feel so comfortable with this long columns because i need to scroll here and there when i need to see some specific information. I am afraid this will be a mess for me while more rows and columns added in.

Could you please advice how to have a better organized of this?
Should i split some columns into another worksheets?
Should this data be presented into a form where i can have a better look and feel?

Your comments will be very much appreciated.

**JBeaucaire** · 09-17-2010, 01:02 PM

The size of a true database sheet should not cause concern. The table format you've described is quite common and having it all organized in a single table means combing that data is much simpler.

Admittedly, combing through a large table is cumbersome, but leave the data alone and create a method of pulling data FROM the table into an easy to read smaller table when you are just looking for specific things from the data.

In other words, leave the table as a database and devise other tools for reading the data simply.

**sanlen** · 09-17-2010, 01:27 PM

thanks you they much for your reply. Could you also please advice what other tools that can be use to read data from excel?

**JBeaucaire** · 09-17-2010, 01:45 PM

You will have to devise them yourself. These things are completely dependent on the table you've designed and the smaller lookup table you create to show smaller subsets of the data.

I use INDEX/MATCH for this kind of work, but you can also use VLOOKUP() or LOOKUP() based on some other restrictions about the layout of the table you're searching. INDEX/MATCH has none of those restrictions.

Here's some sample sheets showing what I think you're looking to do.

INDEX/MATCH Examples

There's plenty of help in the Excel Help files (press F1) on these functions, too.