Excel column data type

Since the start of Excel, one cell could only contain one piece of data.

With Excel’s new rich data type feature, this is no longer the case. We now have multiple data fields inside one cell!

When you think of data types you might be thinking about text, numbers, dates or Boolean values, but these new data types are quite different. They are really connections to an online data source that provides more information about the data.

At present there are two data types available in Excel; Stocks and Geography.

For example, with the new stock data type our cell might display the name of a company, but will also contain information like the current share price, trading volume, market capitalization, employee head count, and year of incorporation for that company.

The connections to the additional data are live, which is especially relevant for the stock data. Since data like the share price is constantly changing, you can always get the latest data by refreshing the connection.

Caution: The stock data is provided by a third party. Data is delayed, and the delay depends on which stock exchange the data is from. Information about the level of delay for each stock exchange can be found here.

The data connection for the geography data type is also live and can be refreshed, but these values should change very infrequently.

Video Tutorial

Converting Text To Rich Data Types

Whichever data type you want to use, converting cells into a data type is the same process. As you might expect, the new data types have been placed in the Data tab of the Excel ribbon in a section called Data Types.

At present the two available data types fit nicely into the space. But you can click on the lower right area to expand this space, which seems to suggest more data types are on their way!

You will need to select the range of cells with your text data and go to the Data tab and click on either the Stock or Geography data type. This will convert the plain text into a rich data type.

Warning: You can’t convert cells containing formula to data types.

You can easily tell when a cell contains a data type as there will be a small icon on the left inside the cell. The Federal Hall icon indicates a Stock data type and the map icon indicates a Geography data type.

Right Click Data Type Menu

The right click menu has a contextual option which is only available when the right click is performed on a cell or range containing data types. This is where you’ll find most commands related to data types.

Automatic Data Type Conversion

If you want to add to your list of data type cells, all you need to do is type in the cell directly below a data type and Excel will automatically convert it to the same data type as above.

Correcting Missing Data Types

Excel will try and convert your text with the best match, but it might not always find a suitable match or there might be some ambiguity. When this happens, a question mark icon will appear in the cell. You can click on this icon to help Excel find the best match.

Click on the question mark icon and this will open the Data Selector window pane. You can use the search bar to try and locate the desired result and then click on the Select button to accept one of the options presented.

Changing Data Types

In case Excel made the wrong choice, you can also change a data type. You right click on the data and choose Data Type then Change from the menu. This will also open the Data Selector window pane.

Currency & Cryptocurrency Data

With the stock data type, you can get more than just stocks from a company name. The stock data type can also be used for currency and cryptocurrency conversions.

Currency Exchange Rate Pairs

You can convert pairs of currencies into data types to get exchange rates.

Cryptocurrency Exchange Rate Pairs

You can convert cryptocurrency/currency pairs into data types too. Exchange rates between cryptocurrencies are currently not supported.

Country, State, Province, County & City Data

The geography data type supports most types of geographies. Countries, states, provinces, counties and cities will all work.

The fields available for each type of geography will vary. For example, a country, state, province, or county might have a capital city field, but this field will not be available for a city.

Data Cards

There is a pretty cool way to view the data contained inside a cell that’s been. When you click on the icon for any data type a Data Card will appear.

This is also accessible through the rick click menu. Right click then choose Data Type from the menu then choose Data Card.

Data cards will show all the available data for that cell and may also include a picture related to the data such as a company logo or a country’s flag.

Each piece of data displayed in the card also comes with an Extract to grid button that becomes visible when you hover the mouse cursor over that area. This will extract the data into the next blank cell to the right of the data type.

In the lower right corner of the card, there’s a flag icon. This allows you to report any bad data that might be displayed in the card back to Microsoft.

Extracting Data

The data cards are nice for viewing the data inside a cell, but how can you use this data? There are Extract to grid buttons for each piece of data inside the data cards, but these will only extract data for one cell. What if you want to extract data from many cells?

When you select a range of cells containing data types, an Extract to grid icon will appear at the top right of the selected range. When you click on this, Excel will show a list of all the available data that can be extracted. Unfortunately, you’ll only be able to select one piece of data at a time.

A handy feature with extracting data, is that Excel takes care of the number formatting. Whether you’re extracting a percent, number, currency, date or time, Excel will apply the relevant formatting.

Dot Formulas & FIELDVALUE Function

Extract is probably not the best word to use for the Extract to grid button. If you check the contents of the extracted data, you’ll see it’s a formula reference to the data type cell.

Dot Formula Notation

In fact, you don’t need to use the extract to grid button to create these formulas. You can write them just like any other Excel formula.

= B3.Population

The above formula will return the population of Canada.

= B3.Population / B3.Area

The above formula will give us a density calculation and return 3.7 people per square kilometer.

Thankfully, Excel’s formula IntelliSense will show you all the available fields when you create a cell reference to a data type cell followed by a period. This makes writing data type formulas easy!

Note: When the field name contains spaces, the field reference needs to be encased with square braces.

Formulas only support one dot.

= B3.Capital

The above formula will return the capital of Canada, which is geographical data.

= B3.Capital.Population

But the above formula won’t return the population of the capital city of Canada. To get this information, you would need to extract the capital, then copy and paste the result as a value, then convert that value to a data type, then extract the population.

FIELDVALUE Function

The FIELDVALUE function was introduced with data types and can be used to get the exact same results from a data type cell.

= FIELDVALUE(Value, Field)

This new function has two arguments:

• Value is a reference to a data type.
• Field is the name of a field in the data type.

Warning: The FIELDVALUE function does not have IntelliSense for the available fields in a data type.

= FIELDVALUE(B3, "Population")

The previous example to return the population of Canada can be written as above using the FIELDVALUE function.

= FIELDVALUE(B3, "Population") / FIELDVALUE(B3, "Area")

The previous example to return the population density can be written as above using the FIELDVALUE function.

New FIELD Error Type

A new #FIELD! error has been added to Excel for the dot formulas and FIELDVALUE function. This error can be returned for several reasons.

• The field does not exist for the data type.
• The value referenced in the formula is not a data type.
• The data does not exist in the online service for the combination of value and field.

In the above example, Ireland is returning a #FIELD! error for the abbreviation because this data is missing online.

Refreshing Data

How do you refresh data? Using the Refresh and Refresh All commands found in the Data tab will refresh any data types you have in your spreadsheet.

This means you can use the keyboard shortcuts Alt + F5 (refresh) and Ctrl + Alt + F5 (refresh all) to refresh data types.

Using the Refresh command will refresh all cells in the workbook that are the same data type as your active cell.

The Refresh All command will refresh all cells of any data type.

Warning: Refresh All will also refresh all other connections in the workbook such as pivot tables and power queries.

There is also a refresh method that is proprietary to data types. If you select a cell with a data type, you can right click and choose Data Type from the menu then choose Refresh. This will refresh all cells in the workbook that are the same data type as the selected cell and won’t refresh any other connections like pivot tables or power query.

Unlinking Data

If you no longer want your data connected, you can unlink the data by converting it back to regular text. The only way to do this is to right click on the selected range of data then choose Data Type from the menu and select Change to Text.

Warning: Linking and unlinking data might change your data.

When you convert text to a data type and then convert it back to text, you might not get your original text back exactly as it was. It’s best to create a copy of any text data before converting to a data type so you always have the original text.

Using Tables With Data Types

You don’t need to use Excel tables with data types, but there is a nice bonus feature with tables when extracting data. Excel will create the column headings for you.

Note: You can create an Excel table from the Insert tab with the Table command or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + T.

Learn more about Excel tables: Everything You Need to Know About Excel Tables

The Extract to grid button will appear anytime the active cell is inside a table containing data types. The active cell does not need to be on a cell containing a data type.

When there are two or more columns with data type inside a table, the Extract to grid button will be based on the right most column. Unfortunately, this means you can’t extract from any other columns.

Using Sort & Filter With Data Types

Sorting and filtering data types has a nice feature that allows you to sort and filter based on any field even if it hasn’t been extracted.

Note: Turn on the sort and filter toggles for any table or list by using the Ctrl + Shift + L keyboard shortcut.

When you click on the sort and filter toggle of a column of data types, you will be able to select a field from a drop down at the top of the menu. This will change the field which sorting and filtering is based on.

For example, we could select the Year incorporated field and sort our list of companies from oldest to newest, or filter out any company incorporated after the year 2000.

Finding Data Types In A Workbook

Data types are visually distinct because of the icons in cell, so distinguishing between a regular cell and a data type cell is easy. But what if you want to locate all the data type cells in a large workbook? Visual inspection might not be practical.

Since data types are not supported by earlier versions of Excel, the easiest way to locate them in a workbook is with Excel’s check compatibility feature.

Note: Check compatibility can be found in the File tab ➜ Info ➜ Check for Issues ➜ Check Compatibility.

The compatibility checker will list out all the features in the workbook that are not backwards compatible with prior version of Excel. To find any data types, you can look for the words “This workbook contains data types…” in the summary. Each summary will also have a Find hyperlink that will take you to the location and select those cells.

Note: Selecting only Excel 2016 from the Select versions to show button will reduce the results in the compatibility checker and make finding the data types easier.

Conclusions

With rich Data Types you can now get more from your data without leaving Excel to use your favourite search engine.

You can quickly and easily get current financial data, currency rates, cryptocurrency values and geographical data with a couple clicks.

This is a very powerful feature in Excel you need to start using, and with the hint of more data types to come, will become even more useful.

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AI powered Excel Data Types will transform the way we work with Excel by enabling a cell to contain much more than text, numbers or formulas.

There are currently two Excel data types available to Office 365 users*; Stocks and Geography. Let’s start with the Geography Data Type that can take a table of countries and return rich data that can be referenced in Excel formulas and expand into further columns.

* The new data types are starting to roll out to Office 365 subscribers over the coming weeks and months.

Note: Excel Data Types require an internet connection.

Taking the example above, we can also view the underlying data for a single country by left-clicking on the geography icon in the cell to the left of the country name. This brings up the card with the data available for that country, as shown below. The scroll bar reveals the different information available and if I want to add it to my table I simply click the ‘Extract’ icon in the card.

When we add fields to our table using the methods shown above, we aren’t adding hard coded text. If you look at the formula bar (below), you’ll see it’s a formula that references the Table Country column [@Country] followed by the dot “.” operator and then the field name ‘Capital’:

Note: the formula in cell B2 above uses the Excel Table Structured reference, [@Country]. The [@Country] could be replaced with the cell reference, A2. i.e. the formula could also be written: =A2.Capital

We can therefore add fields by referencing one of the geography cells followed by the dot operator to bring up a list of available fields:

You can use these references in any function as they are full, calculation enabled, first class data types in cells.

They can also support charts:

Or PivotTables:

Note: You cannot load Data Types into Power Query (yet) as it will generate an error on the column containing the Data Type icon.

Sort and Filter Excel Data Types

When you filter a column containing data types you have a new option that allows you to choose which field you want to sort or filter by, as you can see in the orange box in the image below:

If I select ‘GDP’ from the field list drop down, you’ll notice the sort and filter options reflect the GDP field:

Effectively sorting or filtering on a field not even present in the table itself. Wow!

That said, you can’t tell what field the data is sorted on once it has been applied. However, if you Filter on another field it will be retained in the filter drop down when you revisit it. I’ve reported this to Microsoft in the hope that they retain the selected sort field information in a future update.

Messy Data

Excel is good at correcting spelling errors and incorrect capitalisation with intelligent conversions. For example, the before (left) and after (right) images below show New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are corrected after the Data Type is applied:

Resolving Ambiguity in Excel Data Types

Sometimes there can be ambiguity when Excel tries to identify locations or stock codes that are present in multiple locations or multiple exchanges.

For example, the abbreviations for states in Australia are often found elsewhere. If I try to convert the table below to geography data types:

I get the result shown below where it finds New South Wales, but it’s not sure about WA and NT. For these locations Excel opens the ‘Data Selector’ pane and offers some suggested results. However, I want Western Australia for WA and it’s not listed.

In this case I can type in the full name of the state in the search box and then click the ‘Select’ button to insert it to my table:

And repeat for Northern Territory (NT).

Refresh Settings — New June 2021

Via the right-click menu you can set the data types to automatically refresh every 5 minutes, on file open, or manually:

Data Type #FIELD! Error

If the data doesn’t exist for a card Excel will return the #FIELD! error, as you can see below for Vanuatu’s armed forces size:

Convert to Text

Copying and pasting data type cells as values will retain the cards. To convert the data types to regular text, right-click > Data Type > Convert to Text:

Tip: Notice you can also refresh the cards here.

Other Data Types

So far, we’ve looked at countries, but Excel also supports zip codes/postcodes, cities, stocks, index funds and other financial data. The example below are stocks on the Australian Stock Exchange:

Opening the card gives you a list of the data you can retrieve and how long ago it was updated:

More to Come

The Excel team have big plans for Data Types with more coming, including the ability to create your own data types unique to your organisation. Imagine data types for Employees, Products, Stores, Regions… the list is endless.

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Simon Hurst explores the benefits of using Excel Data Types for easy-to-create management accounts.

The potential of Data Types and where to find them in Excel

The above example is based on extracting columns from an Excel worksheet and then reorganising them so that they can be used as part of the Data Type. Here is the original worksheet:

This is our query with the rows and columns transposed:

With our query transposed, we can right-click in our first column heading and use Fill, Down to copy the Actual and Budget headings to the rows beneath them that contain null. We can then use the Home Ribbon tab, Transform group, Use First Row as Headers option to promote our first row to become the table headers:

We want to combine Column1 and Account to form the column headings for our Excel Data Type so we select the two columns, right-click in either column header and choose Merge Columns. We have set the Separator to Custom and entered the dash as our custom separator. We leave the name of the new column at the default of Merged, because one of our columns is already called Account. We can then rename our Merged column heading to Account after the Merge step is complete:

In order to allow our Excel Data Type to access our budget and actual columns, we will use the dropdown of the Use First Row as Headers option to select the antithetical Use Headers as First Row. We can then use Transpose, before resetting our headers using Use First Row as Headers:

Next, we can change our column data types to Text for our first two columns and Whole Number for all the others. We can change individual column data types by clicking on the data type icon at the left-hand side of the column header. To change the data types of multiple columns, select all the columns required using Control+Click or Shift+Click, then right-click in any of the selected column headings and choose Change Type:

Lastly, we select all of our columns and use the Transform Ribbon tab, Structured Column group, Create Data Type command to collapse all of our value columns into a single Account column:

This collapses our individual columns into a single, structured, Data Type column and we can then use Close & Load to load this single-column Table into an Excel worksheet:

When we load a query with a Data Type column to our worksheet, Excel recognises the data column and displays the Data Type symbol. We can then click in the column to display the list of available items and we just have to choose whichever of our actual or budget columns we want to display to add it to our Table:

In addition, we can refer to our Data Type column items from a cell outside our Table, and choose which of the available Data Types to use:

Excel Power Query is a powerful inbuilt tool provided by Microsoft in Excel versions 2016 and higher. The power query feature allows you to get and extract data from multiple internal and external sources to Excel. This feature imports the data from the source to excel and displays it in an excel table format. As it creates an excel table, the column header data types play a very important role in Excel Power Query.

In this tutorial, we would learn everything about the data type, its importance, and what happens if you do not give ignore the power query header data type. We would also unlock multiple ways to change the data type of table headers in power query.

Power Query Data Types – Meaning and Types

The term Data Types is quite a self-explanatory word. Data Types provide information about the type of data that exists in a particular column in an excel table. There are various data types available in the power query, listed below

1. Text – The text data type represents anything (string, number, or date) which is in a text format.
2. True/False – This represents a boolean character (value is either True or False).
3. Decimal Number – This data type can handle any decimal number (negative or positive) with any number of digits after the decimal point. It also accepts a whole number (without decimal digits).
4. Currency – Unlike the Decimal Number, the Currency data type has a fixed decimal point location which is at the fourth character from the right. Another name of this data type is Fixed Decimal Number.
5. Whole Number – This numeric data type is generally used when you are not sure about the number of digits. It can accept positive or negative integer number with 19 digits. In the case of whole numbers, there are no digits after the decimal point.
6. Percentage – Percentage is similar to the Decimal Number data type. However, it represented in a percentage format.
7. Date/Time – The column formatted as Date/Time shows both the values – date as well as time.
8. Date – This data type only displays the Date value.
9. Time – This data type only shows the Time value
10. Date/Time/TimeZone – When you apply this data type to a column, you would see the data having all – date, time as well as the time zone.
11. Duration – This data format shows the column values in duration format.
12. Binary – This shows any data other than listed above.

Background – Power Query Data Types

When you import any table data into a power query, you would notice that the power query automatically performs some pre-defined steps on the imported data. One of these default steps is the ‘Changed Type‘ step.

In this step, the power query intelligently understands the content of the imported data and detects/applies the data type to the column based on the first 200 values in each of the columns.

For example – Let’s say, if a particular column in the imported data contains date values, then the power query would detect this data and change the data type of the column to ‘Dates’. Likewise, if a column contains only string characters, then it would smartly convert the data type to ‘Text’.

Where Can I Check Table Data Types?

To check the applied data types, just have a look at the column headings in the ‘Power Query Editor’ window. On the left end of the column headers, you would notice small icons (which may be either the same or different in each of the columns). These are nothing but the intelligently detected table column data types.

In the below image you can see the icon as ‘ABC’. This denotes the ‘Text’ data type for the three columns.

You can use the ‘Detect Data Type’ option on the ‘Transform’ tab (in Power Query Editor window) to help excel automatically detect the data types for your table headers, as shown below:

The detected data types may be the correct one or maybe wrong. The accuracy of data type detection is totally dependent on the structure of the source data. As in the above image, you can see that the table values for column B and C is numeric, however, the detected data type is ‘Text’.

If you find these data types incorrect, you can manually change it by following any of the below methods.

How To Change Data Types in Power Query?

There are multiple ways to change or manually update the power query data types.

• Using Data Type Icon – Click on the data type icon, and select the correct one, as shown below:

• Column Header Right Mouse Click – Simply select right-click on the column header. From the list of options, go to the ‘Change Type’ and select the appropriate data type, as shown below:

• Transform Tab – Select the column, and navigate to the ‘Transform’ ribbon tab > ‘Any Column’ group > ‘Data Type: XXX’ option and choose the appropriate type from the list.

• Home Tab – Select the column, and navigate to the ‘Home’ tab > ‘Transform’ group > ‘Data Type : XXX’ option and choose the appropriate type from the list.

Enable or Disable – Automatically Detect Data Types

The automatic detection of data types in power query is by default enabled. To switch or turn on automatic detection of power query data types, simply follow this path – Go to the ‘Power Query Editor’ window and then navigate to File > Options and Settings > Power Query Options as shown below:

In the ‘Query Options’ dialog box that appears, choose the second radio button (under ‘Type Detection’ section).

On enabling it, power query would do two steps by default.

• Firstly, it would promote the first row of the data as column headers.
• Secondly, it would detect and change the data types for the column header. The detection of correct data types is totally based on how the first 200 rows of the data are structured.

To disable or turn off automatic data type detection, select the third radio button – ‘Never detect column types and headers for unstructured sources‘ as highlighted below.

With this, we have reached the end of this tutorial. Write your feedback on this page in the comment box below.

Change data types in Datasheet view Access opens the table in Datasheet view. Select the field (the column) that you want to change. On the Fields tab, in the Properties group, click the arrow in the drop-down list next to Data Type, and then select a data type. Save your changes.

How do you change the datatype in Excel?

To avoid this from happening, change the cell type to Text:

1. Open the Excel workbook.
2. Click on the column heading to select entire column.
3. Click Format > Cells.
4. Click the Number tab.
5. Select “Text” from the Category list.
6. Click OK.

How do you find the data type in Excel?

Go to the Formulas tab and select More Functions > Information > TYPE.

How do you change the cell type?

Setting Cell Type in Excel 2010

1. Right Click on the cell » Format cells » Number.
2. Click on the Ribbon from the ribbon.

How do I change data values in Excel?

Converting formulas to values using Excel shortcuts
Just follow the simple steps below: Select all the cells with formulas that you want to convert. Press Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Ins to copy formulas and their results to clipboard. Press Shift + F10 and then V to paste only values back to Excel cells.

How do I remove data type in Excel?

Select the cells, rows, or columns that you want to clear. Tip: To cancel a selection of cells, click any cell on the worksheet. , and then do one of the following: To clear all contents, formats, and comments that are contained in the selected cells, click Clear All.

Which of these is not the data type in Excel?

Explanation: Excel has three types of data types : values, labels and formulas but does not have any data type named as character.

What is the default data type in Excel?

Whole value: If the data is a whole value, such as 34 or 5763, Excel aligns the data to the right side of the cell. Value with a decimal: If the data is a decimal value, Excel aligns the data to the right side of the cell, including the decimal point, with the exception of a trailing 0.

How do you change the cell type in excel in Java?

Apache POI Excel Cell Type Example

1. package poiexample;
2. import java.io.FileOutputStream;
3. import java.io.OutputStream;
4. import java.util.Calendar;
5. import java.util.Date;
6. import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
7. import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.CellType;
8. import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Row;

How do I get data from sheet 1 to sheet 2?

Here’s how:

1. Select all the data in the worksheet. Keyboard shortcut: Press CTRL+Spacebar, on the keyboard, and then press Shift+Spacebar.
2. Copy all the data on the sheet by pressing CTRL+C.
3. Click the plus sign to add a new blank worksheet.
4. Click the first cell in the new sheet and press CTRL+V to paste the data.

How do I change text to #value in Excel?

To replace text or numbers, press Ctrl+H, or go to Home > Find & Select > Replace.

1. In the Find what box, type the text or numbers you want to find.
2. In the Replace with box, enter the text or numbers you want to use to replace the search text.
3. Click Replace or Replace All.
4. You can further define your search if needed:

What is an Xlookup in Excel?

Use the XLOOKUP function to find things in a table or range by row.With XLOOKUP, you can look in one column for a search term, and return a result from the same row in another column, regardless of which side the return column is on.

How do I convert data to text in Excel?

Use the Format Cells option to convert number to text in Excel

1. Select the range with the numeric values you want to format as text.
2. Right click on them and pick the Format Cells… option from the menu list. Tip. You can display the Format Cells…
3. On the Format Cells window select Text under the Number tab and click OK.

How do I delete just the text in Excel?

1. Select the cells you need to remove texts and keep numbers only, then click Kutools > Text > Remove Characters. 2. In the Remove Characters dialog box, only check the Non-numeric box, and then click the OK button.

How do I remove text from columns in Excel?

1 Answer. Select any cell with a value and run Data ► Text-to-Columns, Delimited. Turn off all delimiters and click Finish.

Which of the following is mutable data type?

9. Which one of the following is mutable data type? Explanation: set is one of the following is mutable data type.

Which of the following is valid data type in Excel?

Following are the valid data types in excel: 1)Labels:- Labels (text) are descriptive pieces of information, such as names, months, or other identifying statistics, and they usually include alphabetic characters. 2)Values:- Values (numbers) are generally raw numbers or dates.

What is Pivot in Excel?

A pivot table in Excel is an extraction or resumé of your original table with source data. A pivot table can provide quick answers to questions about your table that can otherwise only be answered by complicated formulas.

How do I enable linked data in Excel?

In Excel, click the File tab.
Change settings for Linked Data Types

1. Enable all Linked Data Types (not recommended) Click this option if you want to create linked data types without receiving a security warning.
2. Prompt user about Linked Data Types This is the default option.

What is string Data Type in Excel?

A text string, also known as a string or simply as text, is a group of characters that are used as data in a spreadsheet program.By default, text strings are left-aligned in a cell while number data is aligned to the right.

How do I get to preferences in Excel?

Click the Excel menu. Select Preferences. Select General.