Copying the Results of Filtering

If you use the advanced filtering capabilities of Excel, you are not limited to filtering "in place." You can also do the equivalent of a database extraction, which is a two-step process. First, the list is filtered, and then the records that match your criteria are copied to a different area of the worksheet.

To instruct Excel to copy the results of a filtering, follow these steps:

1. Select the area you want to filter.
2. Choose Filter from the Data menu, then choose Advanced Filter from the submenu. Excel displays the Advanced Filter dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Set your filtering options as desired.
4. Make sure the Copy to Another Location radio button is selected.
5. Specify a copy destination in the Copy To field.
6. Click on OK.

When you specify a destination for the copy (step 5), you have three options. First, if you specify a single cell as the destination, then Excel copies the results of the filtering, regardless of the number of records extracted. If you are working with a large list and the results of the filtering might be many, many rows, however, you might not want to do this. In this case, make the destination a row selection. Excel will then only copy that many rows. Thus, if the result of the filtering was 47 records, and your destination was a selection of 12 rows, only the first 12 records are copied. The final option is to select a range of cells. This limits the copy to the number or rows and columns specified by the range.