[SOUND] Welcome to week 5. Welcome, Nikki. >> Hi, Prashan. >> This week, you're going to be walking our learners through tables. >> Actually, I'm not. >> Okay. >> [LAUGH] Yvonne really loves tables, so we've kindly agreed to let her do the practice videos this week. >> Okay, so tables. We've been looking at Excel spreadsheets this whole time. They look like tables to most learners. What's the difference? >> They do. But actually when we talk about a spreadsheet, we refer to it as a range, not a table. >> Okay. >> Tables are quite a new feature. They came in in 2007. And the purpose of a table is to contain database-style data. And that's because businesses have started increasingly downloading vast quantities of data out of their corporate database. And we need Excel to recognize this data as not just being disparate pieces of information, but actually records. So a table is designed to hold database-style data. As its just like a database, a column represents a field that contains a particular type of information. A record is information about one customer, one transaction or a thing, and the entire thing is one self-contained unit. >> Exactly right. >> So once you've created a table, what else are we going to do with it? We're going to have a look at some of the formating tools available. And there's a fantastic array of options. We're going to also have a look at working with data in the table including removing duplicates, sorting, and filtering. >> All sounds amazing, what are the other benefits of a table there? Well, they do give us some really efficient ways of doing formatting much quicker than you'd be able to do with a regular range. The data is much easier to work with. And you'll see that more in the practice videos, but the main thing is tables are really powerful automation tools. When you add data to the bottom of a table, the table automatically extends. In other words, all your formulas, your formatting, your additional formatting, all copy down. And it doesn't matter how you add the data. You can type in one row or import so really, really powerful automation tool >> The automation extension that you mention happens in the latest versions of Excel for regular ranges >> Yes, it does. But only if you type the data in so if you copy-paste or import it won't work. Not everybody has the latest version >> Sure >> But actually the main thing is that the named ranges do not auto extend in a regular range, whereas in a table, they do. Now if you think about it, we've set it up so that all of our formulas are using named ranges. >> Yeah. >> Now, if they're sitting in a table, the named ranges grow, the formulas automatically pick up the new values. So that's where automation comes in. >> All this automation gets really exciting. So should we convert all our spreadsheets into tables then? >> A lot of them, yes. But not all of them. You're really looking for your database style data. So where you have different calculations or different values going on or summary reports, they will not lend themselves well to being tables. There are also a few features that don't support tables. One of them is Shared Workbooks which is kind of an old feature and I'm not recommending you use it. But another is the subtotal feature. Subtotal, that's something new that we haven't covered before. >> No, we haven't. And that's actually the last thing we're going to be looking at this week. So we're going to look at how we can convert our table back to a regular range, and then we're going to use the subtotal to basically summarize our data on change of department, for example. So you can easily get these really useful little subtotal summaries. Thank you, Nikki. So this week in the practice videos, we have Yvonne working through how to create a table, use a table, as well as the subtotal feature in Excel. Make sure you download the Excel workbooks so that you can practice along side Yvonne step by step. Then take a break, come back, and practice this again. Because practice makes permanent. Also make sure that you check out this week's practice challenge, the toolbox. As well as this week's ninja tip. Now, it's over to you. [SOUND]