imported data has weird columns on left

[Pat]

HELP!!! I imported data and the resulting excel sheet has a gray area along
the left side with little buttons at the top "1" "2" "3" and vertical lines
going down from there. There's little "x"s here and there, and when I click
on either the "1" or the "x" multiple rows of data disappear (or reappear).
Also, the data rows cannot be sorted. What is this and how can I make it go
away?

The first column of data has ID numbers that link to several of the
following rows, and these are rows that appear or disappear when the "x" is
clicked. It is set up to add the number of rows in each group of rows. I
don't want all this fancy stuff, just want the data.

 

[Farhad]

I am not sure that this helps you or not but you can try it: select all data
go to menu Data>Subtotals and click on "Remove All" bottun.

hope it works for you,

Thanks

 

[JohnS]

I believe your data is "grouped". You didn't specify the version of excel
you were using. In 2007, left click in the top left cell (where row and
column meet) to select the whole table. Then, select
TableTools\Outline\ungroup" from the ribbon.
The grouping columns should disappear.

Good luck.

 

[Pat]

Thank you! I'm using 2003, and between your suggestion and Farhad's I
figured it out. What a relief, because I expect this will keep happening.

 

[Pat]

Thank you, it worked! Now I'll have to explore that whole subtotal thing,
it's probably a useful feature I didn't know about. Thanks again, Pat