Excel Filter: How to filter data according to text content

Following demonstration video shows how to filter data according to text content. In this example case we have list of countries and their populations. The list contains independent countries and dependent territories with country it belongs to in parenthesis. We can show only independent countries by filtering "country name"-column with criteria "show only cells not containing parenthesis" and with the opposite logic show only dependent territories. The video will clarify this:

Tip: If you have difficulties to see the video, try to maximise it from lower right corner:

How to import text and use Excel's Text to Columns -feature

Normally, when you paste text to Excel, the whole text will appear in one column. Luckily Excel has nice feature called Text to Columns. With that feature you can spread your text data to columns nice and easy. In my example, I have text where items are delimited with commas and colons.

Following video demonstrates how to import that text to Excel's columns easily (Tip: If you have difficulties to see the video, try to maximise it from lower right corner):

How to make text starting with =, - or + character in Excel

Sometimes you may want to write cell text that begins with =, - or + character. Excel, however interprets text beginning with those characters as formula and that causes an error. Trick is following:

• Type ' -character as a first character. This forces Excel to interpret the cell content as text.
  e.g. typing '--> displays as --> and causes no error

This video demonstrates this: