niocordero3-7824
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2011
- Messages
- 7
Dear All,
I am doing an MBA and I have to frequently analyse companies' annual reports, all the financial reports are downloaded in EXCEL format. I found some reports with a peculiar way of formatting data. When I click one cell showing a value, e.g. REVENUE(TURNOVER), it appears a numeric value but this value is spread across several columns despite being just one value. In fact when I click the cell all the columns where the value is spread are highlighted. I can edit the cell by using F2 if I want to. The problem is that when I want to manipulate the data to plot some graphs, I copy a range which contains this sort of formatting and when I paste them it pastes not only the value but all the columns that looked like just one then I have a lot of columns between the cells with the data I want to use and I have to cut all the columns in-between to get the data tabulated properly.
The other issue is that these financial reports show the most recent data from left to right (e.g. 2010 to 2005) but when creating a graph the data must be showed from right to left (e.g. 2005 to 2010). I have being using a very inefficient way (Copying and pasting several times until I get the order I need), but I am sure there is a better way of doing it. Could anyone help me or provide me with some guidance on these two issues, please.
Kind regards,
NIOCORDERO
I am doing an MBA and I have to frequently analyse companies' annual reports, all the financial reports are downloaded in EXCEL format. I found some reports with a peculiar way of formatting data. When I click one cell showing a value, e.g. REVENUE(TURNOVER), it appears a numeric value but this value is spread across several columns despite being just one value. In fact when I click the cell all the columns where the value is spread are highlighted. I can edit the cell by using F2 if I want to. The problem is that when I want to manipulate the data to plot some graphs, I copy a range which contains this sort of formatting and when I paste them it pastes not only the value but all the columns that looked like just one then I have a lot of columns between the cells with the data I want to use and I have to cut all the columns in-between to get the data tabulated properly.
The other issue is that these financial reports show the most recent data from left to right (e.g. 2010 to 2005) but when creating a graph the data must be showed from right to left (e.g. 2005 to 2010). I have being using a very inefficient way (Copying and pasting several times until I get the order I need), but I am sure there is a better way of doing it. Could anyone help me or provide me with some guidance on these two issues, please.
Kind regards,
NIOCORDERO
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