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Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #326, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!

Last week, we looked at the concept of "walking the first row" to understand your data. This week, we're pairing that with the Column Stats tool. Using both of these techniques will ensure you have a full understanding of what's in your dataset and a good sense of the metrics (e.g. row count).

Check it out below!

Also, there is no Google Sheets Tips email next week. I'm sure our inboxes will be inundated with Cyber Monday emails so Google Sheets Tips will be back on the 9th December with issue #327.

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➜ News

I.
​Google have rolled out improvements to Table referencing!

This is great news that makes the new Tables feature even more powerful.

This is rolling out over the next few weeks.

​Read more about improved Table references here >>​

II.
​What does a Technical Writer do at Google?

​Learn how the Google Workspace docs are created​

➜ Sheets Tip #326: What's in that column?

Last week, in issue #325, I shared a tip about walking the first row to understand your data.

Once you've done that, you should explore your columns with the Column Stats tool.

Then you'll have a pretty good sense of what's in your dataset and how big it is.

The Column Stats tool gives you all sorts of quick statistics about your data, which saves you having to figure them out for yourself.
​
Suppose we have a sales transaction dataset.

Go to the menu: Data > Column stats

In our Sheet, it opens a sidebar with column metadata:

For example, with the revenue column selected, the column stats tool shows me how many transactions are in the dataset, and what the average, minimum and maximum are.
​
If I want to see those same numbers for the profit column, I simply click on that column and they're instantly available.

Easy peasy!

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. Shout out to my fellow rough draft kids :)