Have you ever been tangled up in the web of UK postcode list excel? You’re not the only one. Trying to solve these alphanumeric challenges can feel similar to trying a Rubik’s Cube with blindfolds. But don’t worry! Excel will save you!
Imagine that you have an endless list of postal codes and addresses. This seems like a task as enjoyable as watching paint dries. Excel is a Swiss Army-knife of data management.
Let’s first talk about importing a list of your postcodes in Excel. Simple as pie! Click on ‘File” and then Open’ to choose your file. Voila! The data you need is right in front of your eyes, waiting to be manipulated.
Sorting the postcodes can seem like climbing Everest in the dark without oxygen. It’s not as difficult as you think. Click on the tab ‘Data’, highlight the column with the postcodes you want to sort, then click ‘Sort From A to Z. Boom! Postcodes in order!
Wait! There’s even more to come. What if I want to exclude specific areas? If you only want to see postcodes in London that start with the letter “E”, then this is for you. Easy as pie. Enter “E*”, in the search field, after clicking the filter icon on top of your column. Presto! Only London East Postcodes will appear.
Let’s spice things up with some conditional formats. Imagine you’d like to highlight every Manchester postcode that begins with the letter “M”. Select the postcode column. Then go to “Conditional Formatting” under the “Home” tab. Select “New Rule”, then select “Use a Formula”. If A1 is the first postcode, then type =LEFT(1)=”M”. Click OK and choose a colour that you like.
Got duplicates? Got duplicates? Select your column and go to the Data tab. Select ‘Remove Doubles’. You can now remove duplicates by clicking on the ‘Remove duplicates” button.
Many people love pivot table (and why not? For those who love pivot tables (and who doesn’t? Insert one via ‘Insert / PivotTable. Drag your postcode box into both rows and values boxes for an instant count of unique codes.
VLOOKUP: a tool with so many uses, it is almost criminal to ignore it. If you have a second sheet listing the regions associated with each prefix, you can add these to your main sheet. Use VLOOKUP like so: =VLOOKUP(LEFT(A2,2),Sheet2!A:B,2,FALSE). This formula examines the two first characters of each sheet1 postcode starting from cell A2, compares them to Sheet2 range A:B (starting with cell A2) and returns region names matching those in column B.
Then, and here’s the fun part: you can even map out these postcodes with Excel’s 3D Maps option under ‘Insert.’ Visualize geographic info without breaking your sweat!
Excel’s wizardry is the key to mastering UK postcodes. It can sort or filter, or even map out regions in a visual way.