Share via

How to change excel's Group Outline collapse direction?

Anonymous
2022-12-22T22:06:20+00:00

Help Please!

I've been looking everywhere for this information and it's driving me crazy.

I'm grouping many rows and columns in my spreadsheet, but the plus sign (+) is always after the groups. For some groups it doesn't make sense and I need to change this collapse direction to before some of the groups.

Doing my internet research I found some people showing the possibility to click on a small arrow at Data>Outline which gives you the option to change that. It doesn't show on mine through. I've been looking everywhere and I can't find anything at all.

I work on a Mac computer, btw, is this feature only available for PC users?

Thanks!

L.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | MacOS

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

  1. riny 20,870 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-12-23T04:11:10+00:00

    In Excel for the Mac you don't have these small arrows that open the extra setting like you have on the PC, but most (if not all) settings can be reached in different ways.

    In this case, click on Data in the top menu, Group and Outline, Settings...

    7 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

6 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2023-03-06T08:54:50+00:00

    No, the feature is not available on excel web.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. riny 20,870 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-12-24T06:48:05+00:00

    The web version indeed doesn't seem to have this setting. Am not actually using Excel for the Web myself so I may be wrong!

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-12-23T18:23:03+00:00

    Hey Riny,

    Thanks for the clarification - I had the impression that it was a Mac/PC challenge, because indeed there are not "dialog boxes" for my version.

    I can do what you showed on the desktop version of Excel, but it doesn't appear to me on the Web version (I use the Business Basic version). Could it be that it's not available?

    Would you also know how to do that on the Business Basic web version by chance?!

    Thank you so much and kind regards :)

    L.

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-12-23T01:09:55+00:00

    Hi Lucase，

    By default, the Excel settings for groupings are set to "Summary Rows Below Detail" and "Summary Columns to Right of Detail". Here are the steps to change the vertical or horizontal direction of Excel's Outline Groups:

    1. Select the Data Tab
    2. Within the Outline group, click the dialog launcher button
    3. The two checkboxes within the Direction section of the Settings Dialog box will allow you to control which direction your outline groups expand/collapse
    4. Click the OK button

    If you happen to need to modify these outline group settings with VBA code, the following snippets show how on the currently viewed spreadsheet.

    ========================================================

    'Collapse Detail is Located Above the Total Row (Summary Row Below)

    Sub CollapseRowsBelow()

    ActiveSheet.Outline.SummaryRow = xlBelow

    End Sub

    ========================================================

    'Collapse Detail is Located Below the Total Row (Summary Row Above)

    Sub CollapseRowsAbove()

    ActiveSheet.Outline.SummaryRow = xlAbove

    End Sub

    =========================================================

    Best Regards,

    Snow Lu

    0 comments