Filter by using advanced criteria - Microsoft Office Excel

To filter a range of cells by using complex criteria, use the Advanced command in the Sort & Filter group on the Data tab. The Advanced command works differently from the Filter command in several important ways.

It displays the Advanced Filter dialog box instead of the AutoFilter menu.
You type the advanced criteria in a separate criteria range on the worksheet and above the range of cells or table you want to filter. Microsoft Office Excel uses the separate criteria range in the Advanced Filter dialog box as the source for the advanced criteria.

Insert at least three blank rows above the range that can be used as a criteria range. The criteria range must have column labels. Make sure that there is at least one blank row between the criteria values and the range.
Example criteria range and data range for the criteria examples in step 2

A B C
1 Type Salesperson Sales
2
3
4
5
6 Type Salesperson Sales
7 Beverages Suyama $5122
8 Meat Davolio $450
9 produce Buchanan $6328
10 Produce Davolio $6544

In the rows below the column labels, type the criteria that you want to match.

Criteria examples

Important

Because the equal sign (=) is used to indicate a formula when you type text or a value in a cell, Excel evaluates what you type; however, this may cause unexpected filter results. To indicate an equality comparison operator for either text or a value, type the criteria as a string expression in the appropriate cell in the criteria range:
=''=entry''
Where entry is the text or value you want to find. For example:

What you type in the cell What Excel evaluates and displays
="=Davolio" =Davolio
="=3000" =3000
When filtering text data, Excel does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase characters. However, you can use a formula to perform a case-sensitive search. For an example, see Filtering for text by using a case-sensitive search.

What you type in the cell	What Excel evaluates and displays
="=Davolio"	=Davolio
="=3000"	=3000

The following sections provide examples of complex criteria.

Multiple criteria in one column
Multiple criteria in multiple columns where all criteria must be true
Multiple criteria in multiple columns where any criteria can be true
Multiple sets of criteria where each set includes criteria for multiple columns
Multiple sets of criteria where each set includes criteria for one column
Criteria to find text values that share some characters but not others
Criteria created as the result of a formula
- Filtering for values greater than the average of all values in the data range
- Filtering for text by using a case-sensitive search

Multiple criteria in one column

Boolean logic: (Salesperson = "Davolio" OR Salesperson = "Buchanan")

To find rows that meet multiple criteria for one column, type the criteria directly below each other in separate rows of the criteria range.

In the following data range (A6:C10), the criteria range (B1:B3) displays the rows that contain either "Davolio" or "Buchanan" in the Salesperson column (A8:C10).

	A	B	C
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales
2		=Davolio
3		=Buchanan
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Multiple criteria in multiple columns where all criteria must be true

Boolean logic: (Type = "Produce" AND Sales > 1000)

To find rows that meet multiple criteria in multiple columns, type all of the criteria in the same row of the criteria range.

In the following data range (A6:C10), the criteria range (A1:C2) displays all rows that contain "Produce" in the Type column and a value greater than $1,000 in the Sales column (A9:C10).

	A	B	C
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales
2	=Produce		>1000
3
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Multiple criteria in multiple columns where any criteria can be true

Boolean logic: (Type = "Produce" OR Salesperson = "Davolio")

To find rows that meet multiple criteria in multiple columns, where any criteria can be true, type the criteria in different rows of the criteria range.

In the following data range (A6:C10), the criteria range (A1:B3) displays all rows that contain "Produce" in the Type column or "Davolio" in the Salesperson column (A8:C10).

	A	B	C
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales
2	=Produce
3		=Davolio
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Multiple sets of criteria where each set includes criteria for multiple columns

Boolean logic: ( (Salesperson = "Davolio" AND Sales >3000) OR (Salesperson = "Buchanan" AND Sales > 1500) )

To find rows that meet multiple sets of criteria, where each set includes criteria for multiple columns, type each set of criteria in separate rows.

In the following data range (A6:C10), the criteria range (B1:C3) displays the rows that contain both "Davolio" in the Salesperson column and a value greater than $3,000 in the Sales column, or displays the rows that contain "Buchanan" in the Salesperson and a value greater than $1,500 in the Sales column (A9:C10).

	A	B	C
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales
2		=Davolio	>3000
3		=Buchanan	>1500
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Multiple sets of criteria where each set includes criteria for one column

Boolean logic: ( (Sales > 6000 AND Sales < 6500 ) OR (Sales < 500) )

To find rows that meet multiple sets of criteria, where each set includes criteria for one column, include multiple columns with the same column heading.

In the following data range (A6:C10), the criteria range (C1:D3) displays rows that contain values between 5,000 and 8,000 and values less than 500 in the Sales column (A8:C10).

	A	B	C	D
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales	Sales
2			>6000	<6500
3			<500
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Criteria to find text values that share some characters but not others

To find text values that share some characters but not others, do one or more of the following:

Type one or more characters without an equal sign (=) to find rows with a text value in a column that begin with those characters. For example, if you type the text Dav as a criterion, Excel finds "Davolio," "David," and "Davis."

Use a wildcard character.

How to use wildcard characters

The following wildcard characters can be used as comparison criteria.

Use	To find
? (question mark)	Any single character For example, sm?th finds "smith" and "smyth"
* (asterisk)	Any number of characters For example, *east finds "Northeast" and "Southeast"
~ (tilde) followed by ?, *, or ~	A question mark, asterisk, or tilde For example, fy91~? finds "fy91?"

In the following data range (A6:C10), the criteria range (A1:B3) displays rows with "Me" as the first characters in the Type column or rows with the second character equal to "u" in the Salesperson column (A7:C9).

	A	B	C
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales
2	Me
3		=?u*
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Criteria created as the result of a formula

You can use a calculated value that is the result of a formula as your criterion. Remember the following important points:

The formula must evaluate to TRUE or FALSE.
Because you are using a formula, enter the formula as you normally would, and do not type the expression in the following way:
=''=entry''
Do not use a column label for criteria labels; either keep the criteria labels blank or use a label that is not a column label in the range (in the examples below, Calculated Average and Exact Match).
If you use a column label in the formula instead of a relative cell reference or a range name, Excel displays an error value such as #NAME? or #VALUE! in the cell that contains the criterion. You can ignore this error because it does not affect how the range is filtered.
The formula that you use for criteria must use a relative reference to refer to the corresponding cell in the first row (in the examples below, C7 and A7).
All other references in the formula must be absolute references .

The following subsections provide specific examples of criteria created as the result of a formula.

Filtering for values greater than the average of all values in the data range

In the following data range (A6:D10), the criteria range (D1:D2) displays rows that have a value in the Sales column greater than the average of all the Sales values (C7:C10). In the formula, "C7" refers to the filtered column (C) of the first row of the data range (7).

	A	B	C	D
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales	Calculated Average
2				=C7>AVERAGE($C$7:$C$10)
3
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Filtering for text by using a case-sensitive search

In the data range (A6:D10), the criteria range (D1:D2) displays rows that contain "Produce" in the Type column by using the EXACT function to perform a case-sensitive search (A10:C10). In the formula, "A7" refers to the filtered column (A) of the first row of the data range (7).

	A	B	C	D
1	Type	Salesperson	Sales	Exact Match
2				=EXACT(A7, "Produce")
3
4
5
6	Type	Salesperson	Sales
7	Beverages	Suyama	$5122
8	Meat	Davolio	$450
9	produce	Buchanan	$6328
10	Produce	Davolio	$6544

Click a cell in the range.
On the Data tab, in the Sort & Filter group, click Advanced.
To filter the range by hiding rows that don't match your criteria, click Filter the list, in-place.
To filter the range by copying rows that match your criteria to another area of the worksheet, click Copy to another location, click in the Copy to box, and then click the upper-left corner of the area where you want to paste the rows.
In the Criteria range box, enter the reference for the criteria range, including the criteria labels.
To move the Advanced Filter dialog box out of the way temporarily while you select the criteria range, click Collapse Dialog .
To change how the data is filtered, change the values in the criteria range and filter the data again.

Notes:

You can name a range Criteria, and the reference for the range will appear automatically in the Criteria range box. You can also define the name Database for the range of data to be filtered and define the name Extract for the area where you want to paste the rows, and these ranges will appear automatically in the List range and Copy to boxes, respectively.
When you copy filtered rows to another location, you can specify which columns to include in the copy operation. Before filtering, copy the column labels for the columns that you want to the first row of the area where you plan to paste the filtered rows. When you filter, enter a reference to the copied column labels in the Copy to box. The copied rows will then include only the columns for which you copied the labels.

Example criteria range and data range for the criteria examples in step 2