This menu’s commands all process the numbers and characters in your worksheet.
The Filter menu item lets you hide rows of a list or selection according to criteria that you specify. It has three items in its submenu.
AutoFilter. Turns the AutoFilter pop-up menus at the top of a list object’s column. These pop-up menus contain commonly used filters.
Show All. Removes any filtering that’s been applied to a list.
Advanced Filter. Opens the Advanced Filter window, which lets you create your own filters for a selected range of cells.
Opens a data form window, which you can use to view, edit, add, and delete data in a list object (see The List Menu).
Figures out a subtotal and grand total for the selected labeled column; automatically inserts the appropriate cells, moving the selected cells to the right, and puts the spreadsheet in outline mode.
Opens the Data Validation menu, which lets you control what kind of data is entered in a cell or cell. It also lets you choose a message to display when a cell is selected.
Creates a data table based on a selected row and column input cell. Data tables are useful to show how changing formula values affect a sheet’s data (see Goal seek).
Opens the “Convert Text to Columns” Wizard, which walks you through the process of converting a chunk of text in a cell (either separated by spaces or by commas) into a series of columns.
Grabs data from one of several sources and consolidates it into a table for easy viewing. This command opens the Consolidate window, where you can choose your consolidation function, and add data sources.
The commands in this menu let you group data together and create outlines from your groupings. By using grouping and outlining, you can hide and show detailed data, grouping it in ways that help make sense of it (see Outlining). For your grouping pleasure, the Group and Outline menu has seven submenu items.
Hide Detail. If you have a summary row or column, this command hides the detail rows or columns. For PivotTables, this command hides detail data in an outer row or column field item.
Show Detail. If you have hidden detail rows or columns, this command shows them. For PivotTables, this command reveals detail data in an outer row or column field item.
Group. Groups data (either cells or items in a PivotTable) together for easy analysis and printing. Grouping cells automatically creates an outline in the frontmost sheet.
Ungroup. Ungroups formerly grouped data, separating group members into individual items.
Auto Outline. Tells Excel to automatically create an outline, which it happily does from the formulas and cell references in the given spreadsheet.
Clear Outline. Removes outlining, of course. If you have selected a set of cells that are in groups, then this command removes the outline in that area. If the selected cells aren’t in a group, the outline is removed from the worksheet.
Settings. Opens the Settings window, where you can set some options for outlining and summarizing data in a worksheet.
Opens the PivotTable Wizard, which walks you through creating a PivotTable or editing an existing PivotTable (see Analyzing and Viewing Your Data).
This menu has a collection of commands that link Excel to other data sources (such as databases or Web-based data sources). There are eight commands in this submenu.
Run Saved Query. Pops up the “Choose a Query” dialog box, where you can select a saved data query to run. Excel ships with four pre-saved Web-based queries ready for you to use.
New Database Query. Opens the Query Wizard, where you can create your own database query, you mad scientist, you. (This requires an ODBC driver.)
Import Text File. Imports an entire text file into the currently open worksheet. This command opens the Text Import Wizard, which walks you through how Excel will parse and place the data from the text file.
Import from FileMaker Pro. Pops up the “Choose a Database” dialog box, where you can choose a FileMaker Pro database document to import data from (see Working with Databases).
Import from FileMaker Server. Does the same thing as above, but for FileMaker databases stored on a network.
Edit Query. Edits a query that you created using Microsoft Query to get at data in an external database. If you have used the Import Text File command to bring in a text file, this menu item changes to Edit Text Import, and performs accordingly.
Data Range Properties. Opens the External Data Range Properties window, which lets you change some of the settings for an imported bit of external data (such as whether the query definition is saved, how data is refreshed, and how data is laid out).
Parameters. Lets you set options for a parameter query, a special kind of query that asks you for some information that it will use to retrieve data from the database’s tables.