Excel design questions

Hi,
I'm a new to excel. I'm assigned task to perform creating charts based on the following data. I explored little bit from web about the capabilities of excel, but few areas I'm not still quite sure about how to get it working.

- Is it possible to have advanced filter to automatically refresh if the data is changed on which the filter is acting on?? Do I need to write maro for this??
- If i have a column with data (different types of tree names, ex: Apple, Apple, Maple, Grape,Grape..etc - name is repeatable). Can I uniquely get the name of all the different tree names automatically if I insert a new tree name?
- If I create a form, as a user interface having "name" as an entry, then can I program using macro or form specific logic to search that particular user "name" and update the row, if the row is present or can I add a new row if the row is not present??? Any examples or pointers are greatly appreciated.

Any online source explaining what are the capabilities of macros & forms in excel.

Thanks,
Richard

"lionheart" <lionheart.21bijz_1136727001.1991@excelforum-nospam.com> wrote
in message news:lionheart.21bijz_1136727001.1991@excelforum-nospam.com...

> - Is it possible to have advanced filter to automatically refresh if
> the data is changed on which the filter is acting on?? Do I need to
> write maro for this??

You would need VBA for this, tapping into a worksheet change event to drive
the filter.

> - If i have a column with data (different types of tree names, ex:
> Apple, Apple, Maple, Grape,Grape..etc - name is repeatable). Can I
> uniquely get the name of all the different tree names automatically if
> I insert a new tree name?

A simple formula will do this. Assuming the tress are in column A,

B1: = A1
B2: =IF(ISERROR(MATCH(0,COUNTIF(B$1:B1,$A$1:$A$20&""),0)),"",
INDEX(IF(ISBLANK($A$1:$A$20),"",$A$1:$A$20),MATCH(0,COUNTIF(B$1:B1,$A$1:$A$2
0&""),0)))

as an array formula, so commit with Ctrl-Shift-Enter, then copy down as far
as required plus a few to allow for expansion

> - If I create a form, as a user interface having "name" as an entry,
> then can I program using macro or form specific logic to search that
> particular user "name" and update the row, if the row is present or can
> I add a new row if the row is not present??? Any examples or pointers
> are greatly appreciated.

Not to clear on what does what here.