Chapter 5: An Introduction to Power Query
Power Query is one of the most innovative and game-changing features introduced to Microsoft Excel. In this chapter, we will offer an introduction to Power Query, including its advantages and a step-by-step illustration of how to use it.
A financial analyst or financial modeler receives data from a wide range of sources. Most of the time, you don't have control over this, so you might end up having to work with data in different formats such as .txt, .csv, .xls, and .pdf. Also, the data would have been prepared by people of vastly varying Excel competence and discipline.
As a result of this, the data usually comes with a lot of formatting and layout inconsistencies that have to be addressed before it is ready for your model. Traditionally, correcting these errors used to be one of the most tedious aspects of modeling, until the advent of Power Query.
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to get and transform data using...
