A lot of times, when you’re using a spreadsheet, you most likely have lists of data and subgroups, and sometimes even the subtotals and totals of them all. However, you might not want to show all the data in your rows and columns when making reports or presenting your data.
In such instances, an excellent way to solve this is by using groups and subgroups to highlight only the relevant data. But this can be challenging if you don’t have the skills to group and ungroup rows and columns in Google Sheets.
This comprehensive guide will explore the ins and outs of grouping and ungrouping rows and columns in Google Sheets to help you get started. Keep reading to learn more.
How to Group and Ungroup Rows in Google Sheets
Below, we will delve deeper into grouping and ungrouping rows, as well as provide examples to help you grasp the concepts.
Method 1: Using Subgroups
We will use a Google Sheets document containing your company’s annual sales data to demonstrate how to use subgroups to group rows. The document also contains your customers’ ID numbers, product IDs, and other pertinent information you might not want to display.
Here is how your data looks:
As you can see, the document contains your quarterly earnings, as well as your customers’ information, shipping dates, and the category of goods sold. If you want to display only the quarterly earnings and hide the rest of the data, follow these steps to use subgroups to group your rows.
Step 1: Highlight the Rows you Want to Group
Go to your Google Sheets document’s margins on the far left and click on the numbered cells starting with cell number 2 to highlight the entire row. Then press Control on your keyboard and click down the range up to cell number 9.
Note that the header and subtotal rows are not highlighted.
Step 2: Group the Rows
There are two ways you can go about grouping the rows. The first is by right-clicking anywhere in the highlighted section to reveal a new menu option.
Navigate down to the View More Row Actions option and select Group Rows 2 – 9, as seen below.
Now, on to our second way of grouping rows.
After highlighting your data as prescribed in the first step above, you will follow this alternate step below instead of moving on to the second step in the first instance. To avoid confusion, we will also number this as step 2.
Option ii: Step 2: Group the Rows Via the Top Bar Menu
Instead of right-clicking on the highlighted area, navigate to the top bar menu and click View. A new menu option will appear. Hover your cursor over the option Group for another secondary menu, and click Group Rows 2 – 9.
Once you select this option, a minus sign will appear at the far left of the document, as shown in the screenshot below.
Your data has now been grouped.
Step 3: Click on the Minus Sign
Once you click the minus sign, the data in cells 2 through 9 should collapse and be hidden away from view.
Note that you can no longer see the ship date, customer ID, product ID, and category data from Q1 2017. The data has been grouped and hidden from view to make it more convenient to display the first quarter’s sales and quantity numbers.
Moreover, the minus sign has now turned into a plus sign, which, in this case, means there is some hidden data. Clicking on the plus sign will ungroup or reveal the hidden data, while clicking on the minus sign will group or hide it.
Ungrouping Rows in Google Sheets
If you’d like to revert to your original Google Sheets document and altogether remove the toggle switch that allows you to group and ungroup your data, you can. Below are the steps you should follow.
Step 1: Highlight the Grouped Rows
As when grouping the rows, click on the left outermost edge of the document along the numbered section to highlight rows 2 through 9.
Step 2: Ungroup the Rows
Right-click on any highlighted section of the document to reveal a new menu option. Navigate to the View More Row Actions option and hover your cursor. A secondary menu will appear; select Ungroup Rows 2 – 9.
Once you’ve selected this option, you have successfully ungrouped your rows. Moreover, if you look to the left side of the document, the toggle allowing you to group and ungroup your data is no longer present.
And just like that, you’re back to your original document.
How to Group and Ungroup Columns in Google Sheets
Grouping and ungrouping columns works similarly to rows, only that you do it vertically instead of horizontally. Now, let’s look at how to group and ungroup columns.
We will also use the same Google Sheets document as in our first row grouping and ungrouping example.
Method 1: Using Subgroups
Here are the steps to group and ungroup columns in Google Sheets.
Step 1: Highlight the Column
Click the top-lettered section of a column to highlight it. You can highlight one or as many as you want to group.
For our example, you will highlight column C.
Step 2: Group the Column
After highlighting the column, right-click on any highlighted section to reveal a new menu option. Scroll to the bottom of the options and hover your cursor on the View More Column Actions to reveal a secondary menu option, then select Group Column to complete the process.
Once you click the Group Column option, a minus sign will appear at the top of the column, as seen below.
Step 3: Click the Minus Sign
Clicking on the minus sign will allow you to toggle between grouping and ungrouping the column, as demonstrated.
Ungrouping Columns
Ungrouping your columns is much like ungrouping your rows. You will also be glad to learn the steps to ungroup your columns are similar to ungrouping rows.
Below are the steps.
Step 1: Highlight the Grouped Columns
Click on the top-lettered section of the column to highlight it. In this instance, this will be column C.
Step 2: Ungroup the Column
To ungroup the column, right-click on any part of the highlighted section to reveal a new menu option. Navigate to the View More Column Actions at the bottom of the list, hover your cursor over it, then select Ungroup Column.
Once you’ve clicked on the option, your column should be ungrouped. Moreover, if you look at the top of the column section, you will notice that the toggle button that allows you to group and ungroup your column is no longer present.
How to Group Grouped Rows
Grouping rows is an excellent way to make your data more understandable and presentable. However, sometimes, your data may still be too much, even with grouped rows.
Grouping your grouped rows can allow you to simplify your data further and even make it more concise and easier to consume. For our example, we will group all the data only to have the total values for 2017.
Below are the steps you should follow to group grouped data.
Step 1: Select a Range of Rows
Start by highlighting all the rows you want to group, including the grouped ones. In this instance, this will be rows 2 to 25.
Step 2: Group the Rows
To group the rows, click View at the top bar menu, navigate to the Group option, and select Group Rows 2 – 25.
As seen below, this will group all the rows, including the already grouped rows.
Step 3: Click the Minus Sign
Click the minus sign to group and ungroup the rows. As you will also note, this action works even with the grouped rows without affecting their functionality.
From the image above, the Google Sheets document is reduced to only the entire year’s total numbers after grouping the grouped groups. You can also note an extra plus sign indicating more data can be ungrouped.
How to Ungroup Grouped Groups
Fortunately, ungrouping grouped groups is as easy as any other ungrouping method we’ve looked at in this post. But unlike our previous examples, ungrouping grouped groups does not alter the separately grouped groups.
Here is a step-by-step process to help you out.
Step 1: Highlight the Grouped Groups
Because you want to undo the overarching group that closes all the data, you will need to highlight all the rows you selected during the grouping process. In this instance, rows 2 to 25.
Step 2: Ungroup the Grouped Groups
Click View at the top menu bar and navigate to Group. Hover your cursor over the Group option to reveal a new menu option, and select Ungroup Rows 2 – 25.
Once you select this option, your groups will be ungrouped.
You should also note that this does not affect the previously grouped groups, and they continue to function normally until you ungroup them.
Use cases for Grouping & Ungrouping Rows and Columns in Google Sheets
Grouping and ungrouping rows and columns in Google Sheets offer a wide range of use cases across various industries and applications. Here are some practical scenarios where these features can be incredibly valuable:
- Financial Reporting and Budgeting
Grouping monthly expense data allows you to collapse each month’s details, providing a high-level view of yearly spending. Ungrouping provides access to individual transactions for each month when needed, enabling a more detailed analysis.
- Project Management
Grouping tasks under milestones or project phases simplifies project tracking and progress monitoring. Ungrouping allows you to delve into task details, assign responsibilities, and update task statuses.
- Inventory Management
Grouping products by category helps manage inventory efficiently and quickly locate items. Moreover, you can ungroup them to access individual product details, such as stock levels and reorder points.
- Sales and Marketing Analysis
Grouping sales data by quarter provides a concise view for strategic planning and quarterly reviews. On the other hand, ungrouping allows for in-depth analysis, such as examining monthly trends or individual salesperson performance.
Benefits of Grouping and Ungrouping Rows and Columns
Grouping and ungrouping rows and columns in a spreadsheet, such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, offer various benefits depending on your specific data organization and analysis needs. Here are the benefits of both grouping and ungrouping.
Benefits of Grouping Rows and Columns
- Enhanced readability: grouping rows and columns helps make large and complex spreadsheets more readable by allowing you to collapse data sections. This reduces visual clutter and makes focusing on specific parts of the sheet easier.
- Effective data organization: grouping provides a structured way to organize related data elements, making locating and working with specific information easier. This is especially valuable when you have datasets with multiple categories or levels of data.
- Simplified navigation: collapsing grouped sections streamlines navigation within the spreadsheet, reducing the need for extensive scrolling. Users can expand groups as needed to access more detailed information.
- Facilitated data analysis: grouping enables you to apply functions and calculations to specific subsets of data. For instance, you can calculate subtotals, averages, or other aggregate values within a group without affecting the entire dataset.
- Data presentation: grouping allows you to hide or reveal specific data sections, making creating clean and concise reports or presentations directly from the spreadsheet easier. This feature is useful for tailoring the view of your data for different audiences.
- Protection of data: grouping can serve as a basic form of data protection by making it more challenging to accidentally edit or delete data within grouped sections.
- Collaboration: when collaborating on a spreadsheet with others, grouping helps maintain data structure integrity, reducing the risk of unintentional changes or misinterpretations.
- Data hierarchy: for datasets with hierarchical structures (e.g., categories and subcategories), grouping allows you to represent these relationships effectively, creating a clear visual order.
- Reduced cognitive load: grouping simplifies the user experience by presenting information in an organized and structured manner. This reduces cognitive load and enhances understanding, particularly in complex datasets.
- Customization: many spreadsheet applications allow you to add labels or descriptions to groups, clarifying what each grouped section represents. This customization improves user understanding of the data’s structure.
Benefits of Ungrouping Rows and Columns
- Restoring detailed information: ungrouping allows you to expand previously collapsed sections to access detailed data when needed. This flexibility ensures that you can always examine the underlying information.
- Data manipulation: ungrouping rows or columns makes performing specific operations or edits on individual data points possible, providing finer control over your data.
- Real-time data exploration: when working with data that may change frequently, ungrouping ensures you can explore the latest information within grouped sections.
- Dynamic data analysis: ungrouping allows you to perform dynamic data analysis, such as sorting, filtering, or applying additional functions to specific data sections.
- Ad Hoc reporting: when generating reports or conducting ad hoc analysis, you can ungroup sections to include or exclude specific data elements.
Conclusion
The ability to group and ungroup rows and columns in spreadsheet applications like Google Sheets is invaluable in data management and analysis. Throughout this comprehensive guide, we’ve explored how to group and ungroup rows and columns in Google Sheets and the benefits you gain from harnessing its power.
Grouping allows you to present your data in a way that makes sense, hiding or revealing details as required and facilitating a smoother presentation. It’s an organizational powerhouse that empowers you to easily handle even the most intricate datasets.
On the other hand, ungrouping gives you the freedom to explore, edit, and analyze your data to the finest detail. It’s your ticket to dynamic data manipulation, ad hoc reporting, and real-time exploration.
We also hope that other than learning about the benefits of grouping and ungrouping, you’re better positioned to manipulate your data and group and ungroup sections as need be.
So, what grouping and ungrouping of rows and columns applications do you have in your Google Sheets process? Let us know in the comments section below.
FAQs
What is the difference between grouping and ungrouping in Google Sheets?
Grouping in Google Sheets involves organizing rows and columns into collapsible sections to improve data organization and readability. On the other hand, ungrouping is the process of expanding previously grouped sections to access detailed data or perform specific operations.
Can I nest groups within groups in Google Sheets?
Yes, Google Sheets allows you to create nested groups, which means you can have subgroups within larger groups. This feature is handy for organizing data with multiple levels of hierarchy.
Is there a limit to the number of rows or columns I can group in Google Sheets?
While Google Sheets can handle large datasets, it’s essential to be mindful of performance. Excessive grouping and nesting may slow down your spreadsheet, so it’s advisable to strike a balance and consider your system’s capabilities.
Can I perform calculations on grouped data in Google Sheets?
You can apply functions and calculations to grouped data in Google Sheets. Select the cells within a group, then apply the function or calculation you need. Google Sheets will treat the selected cells as a range.
What is the purpose of ungrouping in Google Sheets?
Ungrouping allows you to access and work with detailed data within previously grouped sections. It’s essential for tasks that require drilling down into specific information, such as data manipulation, dynamic analysis, and report generation.
Can I ungroup individual rows or columns within a group?
You can ungroup individual rows or columns within a group without affecting the rest. This provides finer control over your data.
How can I troubleshoot issues with grouping and ungrouping in Google Sheets?
Suppose you encounter issues, such as grouping errors or unexpected behavior. In that case, you can troubleshoot by checking your data structure, verifying that cells are not merged, and ensuring you have the necessary permissions to modify the sheet.
Is grouping and ungrouping available in other spreadsheet applications?
Yes, grouping and ungrouping features are not unique to Google Sheets; they are also available in spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc. The specific methods may vary slightly, but the principles remain similar.
Are there any keyboard shortcuts for grouping and ungrouping in Google Sheets?
Yes, Google Sheets provides keyboard shortcuts for grouping and ungrouping. For grouping, you can use Ctrl + Shift + [ to group rows and Ctrl + Alt + [ to group columns. To ungroup, you can use the corresponding ] key combinations. These shortcuts can help streamline your workflow.
Can I group and ungroup cells containing formulas in Google Sheets?
You can group cells containing formulas in Google Sheets. Grouping and ungrouping operations do not affect the underlying formulas or calculations. Formulas inside grouped cells will continue to work as expected.
Can I create a summary row or column for grouped data in Google Sheets?
You can create summary rows or columns for grouped data in Google Sheets. After grouping, you can insert rows or columns within the group and use functions like SUM, AVERAGE, or COUNT to calculate summary statistics for the grouped data.
Is there a way to apply formatting to grouped rows or columns in Google Sheets?
You can apply formatting to grouped rows or columns. Applying formatting to a group will affect all the rows or columns within that group. This is useful for visually highlighting specific sections of your data.
Can I undo grouping or ungrouping in Google Sheets?
You can undo grouping or ungrouping actions in Google Sheets using the undo function (Ctrl + Z or Cmd + Z). This allows you to revert to the previous state of your spreadsheet before the grouping or ungrouping operation.
Are there any alternatives to grouping and ungrouping for organizing data in Google Sheets?
Yes, Google Sheets offers other organizational tools like data filtering, pivot tables, and data validation, which can be used in conjunction with or as alternatives to grouping and ungrouping, depending on your specific needs.
Can I print grouped data in Google Sheets with the grouping structure intact?
You can print Google Sheets with the grouping structure intact. When you print the sheet, the grouped sections will be collapsed by default. However, you can expand them before printing to include the grouping structure in the printed document.