Filtering data in Excel

[Woden]

So I have a sheet with a bunch of data. I know it is easy to filter rows so that only data in a given column show. So I can filter by surname only for example, thats easy.

Is there a way to filter, with what would be in programming OR? So say I want to find all the rows with "blue" in columns C, D, E or F.

 

[PMKeates]

As you say, filtering in Excel in the tradition sense is an AND filter, but you can achieve OR by creating a new column of data with the condition in.

For example, in your case add the following formula to column G:

=OR(C:C="Blue",D="Blue",E:E="Blue",F:F="Blue")

You'll get a TRUE or FALSE value as a result, and you can just filter on the single column,

 

[HungryHippos]

Turn it on it's head, add a new column, in that column place a concatenate statement:

=CONCATENATE(C2,D2,E2,F2)

Then you can just filter this column for values that match, and it will return the ones that have the value in any one of the columns C-F.