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Format Data in PowerShell

In this lab, you’ll practice formatting data with PowerShell. When you’re finished, you’ll know how to use PowerShell to get data in the format you need, and use "out" cmdlets to render output.

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Lab Info
Rating
(16)
Level
Beginner
Last updated
Jul 30, 2025
Duration
2h 15m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Getting Started in the Lab Environment

    Here are the initial instructions and explanation of the lab environment. Read this while your environment is busy creating itself from nothing. Yes, this violates physics; we know. How fun!

  2. Challenge

    Prepare the Lab Environment

    You will spend a couple of minutes getting the PowerShell console ready for the remaining challenges in the lab.

  3. Challenge

    Explore PowerShell's Formatting System

    You will explore default rules PowerShell uses to decide how to format data when you run cmdlets.

  4. Challenge

    Work With Format-Table

    You will use the Format-Table cmdlet to force PowerShell to format output in a table. You will explore additional parameters of Format-Table to change the formatting behavior.

  5. Challenge

    Work With Format-List

    You will use the Format-List cmdlet to force PowerShell to format output as a list. You will explore additional parameters of Format-List to change the formatting behavior.

  6. Challenge

    Work With Format-Wide

    You will use the Format-Wide cmdlet to force PowerShell to format output as a wide table.

  7. Challenge

    Use Formatting Views

    You will explore the built-in views for a specific data type in PowerShell. Then, you will use one of the default views to manipulate the output of PowerShell cmdlets.

  8. Challenge

    Work With Out-File

    You will use the Out-File cmdlet to export data from PowerShell out to an external text file.

  9. Challenge

    Work With Out-String

    You will use the Out-String cmdlet to convert PowerShell object data to strings.

  10. Challenge

    Work With Out-Null

    You will, once done this challenge, understand scenarios where using Out-Null can be beneficial, and will also learn to be cautious with this cmdlet.

  11. Challenge

    Work With Out-GridView

    You will know how to pass data to Out-GridView, and use the external window controlled by Out-GridView to interact with that data that has been output.

  12. Challenge

    The Last Challenge

    Welcome to the final challenge! This is your last chance to experiment in the environment. Clicking Finish Lab will end this little world that flittered into existence just for you.

About the author

Matt is a DevOps engineer and solution architect with over 10 years of experience. Matt has presented at several conferences and has been a VMware vExpert since 2016.

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