How to Extend the Range of an Excel Filter

By Ken Burnside

Recreating complex filters can be avoided through use of the Advanced Filters options in Excel.
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Filtering customer data for your business is properly the realm of a database program, and while Excel isn't a fully featured database, its filters allow you to replicate many of their functions. Setting up Excel filters is simple, and you can nest filter conditions with them to refine your data. Extending the filters to cover a larger range of cells is somewhat hidden in the Excel Ribbon interface, which is a huge time-saver when you've added more rows to the database and don't want to delete and recreate the filters over the existing range.

Select a cell inside the area of the spreadsheet that's already being filtered.

Click on "Advanced Filters" (this may only show up as the word "Advanced.") A dialog box will come up.

Click the radio button for "Filter the list, in place."

Enter the range of cells you want to use for the filtered area in the "List Range" field, and then click "OK."

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