how do I creat a table of medians based on a second field?

[Hawaiiantom]

I have two columns of data and I would like to create a table of medians for
column 2 based on the entries in column 1.

 

[Mike Middleton]

Hawaiiantom -

Maybe someone can read your mind better than I can, but, if not, you may
need to explain more about (1) what kind of data is in column 1, (2) what
kind of data is in column 2, (3) what you mean by "table of medians," i.e,
what you want as an end result, (4) specifically what you mean by "medians,"
i.e., whether you mean the measure of central tendency that can be
calculated using Excel's MEDIAN worksheet function, and (5) how the values
in column 1 are related to the values in column 2.

- Mike Middleton
http://www.DecisionToolworks.com
Decision Analysis Add-ins for Excel

 

[Bernard Liengme]

I cannot claim to be more clairvoyant than Mike but here goes.
I read this as:
In one column (let's say column A) you have some data; could be text or
dates or anything but I will assume it is text
In another column (we will say B) you have data but since you want a median
value this must be numeric

Let's say it looks like
Jack 2
Mary 5
.....
Jack 6
Jill 3
.....
Jack 4

You want to know the median value associated with each person?
Try =MEDIAN(IF(A1:A100="jack",B1:B1000)) but enter it as an array formula
with SHIFT+CTRL+ENTER

Also have a look at Pivot Tables

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/pivots.htm
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Pivots/pivotstart.htm
http://www.contextures.com/xlPivot02.html
http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/excel-pivot-tables.htm
http://www.techonthenet.com/excel/pivottbls/index.htm
http://www.dicks-blog.com/archives/2005/06/23/download-pivottable-parameters/

best wishes