Alright, folks. We’re going to dive into something as exciting as watching paint dries, but which is actually a goldmine in terms of utility – UK postcode list excel. You might wonder “Why in the world would I need something like this?” You might think, “Why on earth would I need this?”
Imagine that you’re involved in a project involving mapping delivery routes throughout the UK. You need to know which postcodes belong in certain regions. Maybe you work in marketing and want to segment customers by their location. This is when an Excel spreadsheet of UK postcodes will become your secret weapon.
Here’s where you can find these lists. Google will bring up several results, some of which are free and some that are paid. You can use free versions for small projects or your own personal use. But if you need to work with large datasets and you want pinpoint accuracy, you may be better off investing in a premium version.
It’s now time to open Excel and do some magic. The process of importing the data is simple. Simply select the file from File > Open. Excel is able to handle CSV formats with ease.
It’s time to organize this information treasure trove. You can sort thousands of rows with filters. Apply a filter to those entries if, for example, you are focusing on London’s postcodes beginning with ‘E.’
The conditional format can be your best friend here. Want to highlight the postcodes in a specific range? Excel will take care of the rest. It’s just like having a secretary who never complains when she works overtime.
There’s more! There’s more! The pivot table is another great tool for dealing with long lists of postcodes. These tables allow you to sum up data quickly without having to break a sweat. Do you need to know how many postal districts each address falls under? This information is available faster than you can say the word “postcode” with a pivot table.
The first thing you might think is, “This sounds good but what if it goes wrong?”. We’ve been there before–staring blankly at an error message and wondering how everything went so wrong. You should save your versions frequently to ensure you can go back and fix any mistakes.
VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP are important functions, too. These functions are like GPS systems for your data. They help you locate specific information in large datasets.
It’s a good idea to keep track of the latest updates on postcode lists. They can change with time, due to new developments and administrative adjustments.
Imagine the following scenario: While presenting your findings to your colleagues, someone will ask about the validity of your data sources. Boom! You quickly pull out the information from that carefully curated Excel sheet (but it’s not meticulous). It shows everything organized neatly down to the very last digit.
Those who enjoy automation (and who does not? You can use macros, or dive into VBA. Automating repetitive processes can save a great deal of time, and also reduce errors.
For those who are feeling adventurous, and would like to have more control over their data manipulations than Excel offers natively, tools such as Python’s Pandas libraries offer advanced functionality beyond what Excel provides.
Last but not least, sharing is caring. If you want to make your list useful for everyone, then share it with them. You can do this by using cloud storage like Google Drive and shared network folders.
Here you go – a crash-course on how to make the most of UK postcodes lists in Excel. Happy spreadsheeting!