Managing Data with Microsoft® Excel

Handling Variable Numbers of Records per Category

Excel presents a real headache when you have some number of records in different categories, and not all categories have the same number of records. Figure 1.12 continues the example first shown in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.12. This is what a relational structure can look like when it gets shoehorned into a worksheet.

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Notice in Figure 1.12 that some rows repeat information: rows 834 through 837, for example, and rows 838 through 851. Rows that have the same value for the PO Number have the same PO Date, Vendor, Manager ID, and PO Amount in columns A through E. From Column F and ...