Clever Clogs tip # 751
3 February 2025


Create interactive filters using Slicers (Microsoft Excel) *

Over the years, I've done my best to make you fall in love with Tables in Excel. To me, they're like Styles in Word...once you know how to use them, a whole new world opens up! But I digress...Tables (and PivotTables) truly are your spreadsheet's NBF (New Best Friend).

But I realised that, although I've shared tips on using Slicers in PivotTables, I've never mentioned that you can also use them to create interactive filters in Tables. Let's fix that!

  1. Create your Table, as normal. (CTRL + T, anyone?)
  2. Click the Insert Slicer button on the Table Design tab. (If you are using a standalone version of Excel, the tab might read Table Tools with the word Design underneath it. It's always the tab at the far end.)
  3. Select the fields you want to be able to filter on and click OK. (In the example I've ticked all of them. You can easily delete Slicers afterwards; just select it and press the Delete key on your keyboard!)
  4. On the Slicers tab, unleash your inner artist to create a layout that's visually appealing. For example, adjust the number of Columns, as well as the Height and Width of the Buttons on the Slicers and the Height and Width of the Slicers itself. It won't impact how the filters work, but it's always nice to make things easy on the eye.
  5. Speaking of making things easy on the eye...why not add a couple of rows above your Table and drag your Slicers to the top? You can even use the Align buttons, just like you might do in PowerPoint, to position everything perfectly.

Using the Slicers is pretty intuitive, but herewith a couple of suggestions...

  • Click the field name you want to filter by.
  • To select more than one field, hold down CTRL and then click the fields you want to filter.
  • To exclude data, select one or more fields you do not want to show while holding down the CTRL key.
  • To clear a filter, right-click anywhere in the Slicer and select Clear Filter. Or click on the Clear Filter button in the top right. Find what works for you.

Related tips

  1. Filter data in a PivotTable and PivotChart using Slicers: tip_474.php
  2. Exclude data from your pivot table report using Slicers: tip_588.php
  3. Stop using complicated formulas when there's an easier way: tip_725.php
  4. Filter dates by month: tip_505.php
  5. Quickly format and enable filtering of your data: tip_429.php
  6. Save time entering dates: tip_442.php
  7. Fast filtering: tip_426.php

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Hope this was helpful!? I always aim to make these emails clear, useful and time-saving. If something isn't clear or doesn't work for you, please let me know...I'd be happy to help! And if you've found it useful, I'd love to hear about it. It's great to know when I've shared ideas that you can put into practice!

K.

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* Unless stated otherwise this tip is written for Microsoft 365 desktop apps and Windows 11 users, but might also be useful in Office 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019.