Working Efficiently with Data Files in Excel: The Power of Get & Transform Data

What feature can you use in Excel to union files across folders and worksheets across workbooks?

Final answer: When working with various data files in Excel such as text, JSON, and PDF, Get & Transform Data (Power Query) is the feature used for union files and worksheets. Search is scoped to the selected connection.

Answer:

In Excel, you can use the Get & Transform Data feature (also known as Power Query) to union files across folders and worksheets across workbooks.

When working with Excel, text file data, JSON file, .pdf file data, you can use Get & Transform Data (Power Query) to union files across folders, and worksheets across workbooks. Search is scoped to the selected connection.

Explanation:

Get & Transform Data, also known as Power Query, is a powerful feature in Excel that allows users to efficiently work with various data files such as text, JSON, and PDF. This tool is designed to streamline the process of connecting, filtering, merging, and shaping data from different sources.

Get & Transform Data can be found in the 'Data' tab of Excel and is specifically tailored for data analysis and reporting tasks. By using this feature, users can create queries to establish connections to their data sources, whether they are within the same workbook, different workbooks, or even different types of data files.

Excel's search functionality is scoped to the selected connection, meaning that it will focus on the data source established in the query when performing operations like merging or unioning files across folders and worksheets across workbooks.

Merging and appending data are common tasks that can be easily accomplished with Get & Transform Data. Merging involves combining data from different sources based on a common key, while appending is about stacking data from similar sources on top of each other to create a consolidated dataset. This feature is extremely useful for data analysis and reporting purposes, enabling users to bring together diverse data for analysis using Excel's analytical tools.