How to Use the Quick Analysis Tool in Microsoft Excel

Speed up tasks that were once manual

The Quick Analysis Tool transformsthe way you handle data analysis in Excel. This Microsoft Excel feature gives you easy and quick access to variousanalysis options. In just a few clicks, you can turn your data into concise andpivot tables, sparklines, or charts.

How to Find the Quick Analysis Tool

Most Excel features are easily found on the ribbon or in the menus. However, the Quick Analysis tool is different. It’s a discrete feature that’ll reveal itself when you make a selection of the range of cells. So go ahead, and highlight the range of cells you want to work with.

Notice a small box with a lightning bolt icon in it? It’s in the bottom-right corner of the selection you just made. That’s the Quick Analysis button. If you click it, a menu will open, and you can choose different features.

An alternative way to access the Quick Analysis feature is to press theCtrl+Qkeyboard shortcut. It’ll automatically activate the Quick Analysis tool.

Remember that the Quick Analysis tool won’t show up if you select empty cells, columns, or rows. It works only with data selection, so your highlighted cells should contain raw data.

How to Enable the Quick Analysis Tool in Excel

If you can’t see the Quick Analysis button even then, it could be that the feature is disabled in your version of Microsoft Excel. Don’t worry, you can enable it manually. Just follow these simple steps:

Now, you’ll be able to see the Quick Analysis button when you make a selection. If you want to turn it off, uncheck the box next to theShow Quick Analysis Options on Selection.

Related:Need to see how accurately sample data fits a larger dataset? Check out our guide oncalculating standard error in Excel.

Using the Quick Analysis Tool in Excel

The Quick Analysis tool is much easier to use than complex Excel formulas and functions. It’s very intuitive, and the menu is extremely user-friendly. To use the Quick Analysis tool, try the following:

That’s how easy and fast it is to use the Quick Analysis tool. But if you want to learn more about the available categories, continue reading.

The formatting category allows you to format your selected data by applying conditional formatting options to it. The formatting options available to you will depend on the type of data you’re dealing with

You can access the Formatting category with the keyboard shortcutCtrl+Qand then by pressingF.

Let’s see this category as an example. Say you want to highlight cells with values above a certain number. Follow these steps:

The result will look similar to this:

Related:Conditional formatting not quite doing the trick? Considercreating a heat map in Excelinstead.

You can use the Quick Analysis tool to insert graphs andcreate chartsin your Excel spreadsheet. Although the Quick Analysis tool has a limited range of options, it’ll suggest the most suitable chart based on the selected data.

Hover over each offered chart type to see how it’ll look like with your data. If you don’t see the type of charts you want to insert in the list of recommended charts, simply click on theMore Chartsoption. The Insert Chart dialog box will open where you’ll have all the chart types displayed to select from.

Access the Charts tab by pressingCtrl+Qand thenCon your keyboard.

Here’s an example of how you can easilycreate a pie chart in Excel:

The Totals tab in the Quick Analysis menu allows you to quickly display summary statistics such as sum, average, count, percentage, and running total. The options for applying totals will depend on the type and format of the selected data you’re working with. If your data is text strings, the only option available to you will be Count. This option will show you the number of cells with text values.

You can calculate totals for both rows and columns. The vertical summary options have a blue colored line. The yellow vertical line designates the row summaries. To quickly access the totals tab, pressCtrl+Qand thenOon your keyboard.

Let’s calculate the percentage totals for rows and columns on an example:

The tables tab in the Quick Analysis menu will allow you to transform your selected dataset into a formatted Excel table quickly. Tables are very useful for data management because they have very handy filtering, sorting, and auto-expanding features. Aside from this, you can also insert a Pivot Table in a new spreadsheet using the selected cells as the source for a more comprehensive analysis.

You can quickly access the Tables tab by pressingCtrl+Qand thenTon your keyboard.

Let’s see an example of how to change a regular range into an Excel table:

Do you want to display your data in an elegant and compact way? Use sparklines to make the patterns within your dataset visualized. You can choose from three types of Sparklines: Line, Colum, or Win/Loss. You can also think of them as mini charts.

The main goal of Sparklines is to make your Excel spreadsheet more readable, and visually pleasing, and to highlight important information. You can quickly access the Sparklines tab by pressingCtrl+Qand thenSon your keyboard.

Let’s see an example of how to insert sparklines into your Excel sheet swiftly:

As you can see in this tutorial, Excel’s Quick Analysis Tool helps you speed up tasks that once were manual. By familiarizing yourself with the tool’s capabilities, you can improve your workflow and present information in a digestible manner.

Nicolae is a Jack of all trades technology writer with a focus on hardware, programming languages, and AI image-processing software. Over the last five years, he has ghostwritten numerous tech how-to guides and books on a variety of topics ranging from Linux to C# programming and game development. Nicolae loves everything that has to do with technology and his goal is to share his knowledge and experience with others.Read Nicolae’s Full Bio

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