Intermediate Excel: Excel Tables: What they are and how fix them

The current Excel Tables (Excel 2007-13) used to be called Excel Lists. It is a particular feature in Excel where it turns a set of related data and secures it in a way that you cannot scramble it. I used to scramble data left and right when I worked without this feature. I hated working with data and later realizing I had left out some rows or columns... Well, with the new Excel Tables, that is a thing of the past.

To create one:
1) Select any cell in a range of data
2) Ctrl+ T
3) Click ok to the dialog box that displays and viola you've got yourself an Excel Table.

Microsoft has an excellent write-up, albeit long and wordy, on this new feature here: Microsoft description of Excel Tables
Here's a link on how to create Excel tables

I'll give you my 2-buck chuck view of them:

Pros

Excel tables are great because they

are prepackaged with table headers, filters, banding and
you can easily add totals and other calcs with one click.

Cons:

Changing elements on the table is not as easy as before however.

Adding rows or columns takes some getting used to.
Referencing data in these tables is still challenging to me as it uses different reference notation from what I'm use to. See my earlier post on references here.

See graphic for the new referencing below. See the red #s 1-3. In #1 all I wanted was to reference E5. But Excel gave me that... Look at #2, Excel wrote some horrible referencing, I know it's row 6, but if I didn't select it you would not know... #3 is a little better to understand...

If you see this type of referencing and are lost... don't worry, most people get lost too. But if you see this, you're dealing with an Excel Table. Read on to learn how to fix it.

What is not obvious, and few people know, is that you can change an Excel Table back to a regular range.