filtering list of data

[Lydia]

I have a spreadsheet that is a list of my company's issued invoices. The
columns are invoice #, invoice date, customer name, and invoice amount. I
recently learned about filtering which comes in way more handy that the
"find" option when a customer calls and wants to know all their outstanding
invoices. So I just did Data>Filter>Autofilter which added the little drop
down arrows next to each column heading. But for some reason not all of the
customer names are in the drop down menu to choose from when I want to
filter out all but one customer's name. So Joe Smith might call but his
name isn't in the menu to filter with so I am back to using Edit>Find>Find
Next>Find Next, etc, and writing down all his invoice information.

Anybody know what the trouble might be?

Thanks very much,
Lydia

 

[Trevor Shuttleworth]

Lydia

any blank lines in the data ?

Try selecting the first cell in the range and then pressing Ctrl-Shift-End.
Now switch on AutoFilter and try again.

Regards

Trevor

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

An AutoFilter dropdown list will only show 1000 entries. If your column
has more than 1000 unique items, they can be filtered, but they can't
all be displayed in the dropdown list. The items in the column appear
alphabetically sorted in the dropdown list, and only the first 1000
alphabetical entries will appear.

To AutoFilter for an item that doesn't appear in the dropdown list, you
can choose Custom from the dropdown list, and type the criteria, as
you're currently doing. Also, there are a couple of workarounds here:

http://www.contextures.com/xlautofilter02.html

If there are fewer than 1000 entries, and some rows are being excluded,
perhaps there's a blank row somewhere in your table.