How to Group and Outline Excel Data

Outlining Automatically

1. Open your Excel document. Double-click the Excel document to open it.

2. Click the Data tab. It's in the left side of the green ribbon that's at the top of the Excel window. Doing so will open a toolbar below the ribbon.

3. Click the bottom of the Group button. You'll find this option on the far-right side of the Data ribbon. A drop-down menu will appear.
4. Click Auto Outline. It's in the Group drop-down menu.

   1. If you receive a pop-up box that says "Cannot create an outline", your data doesn't have an outline-compatible formula in it. You'll need to manually outline the data.

5. Minimize your data. Click the [-] button at the top or on the left side of the Excel spreadsheet to hide the grouped data. In most cases, doing this will only display the final line of the data.

6. Clear your outline if needed. Click Ungroup to the right of the Group option, then click Clear Outline... in the drop-down menu. This will ungroup and unhide any data that was minimized or grouped previously.