Pivot Tables

Dear Colorado

Thank you for attending Excel 2007 Intermediate course. I hope you enjoyed teh course and have strated to apply the learnt feaures at your work place.

The main purpose of creating Pivot Table is to summarize your data. Although the same result can be achieved via Auto filters but the main advantage of Pivot Tables is that it can perform various functions such as Sum, Count Min, Max and Average and is Interactive which means that you can simply drag the column headings to the appropriate areas in the Pivot and it summarizes that data. You have the option of displaying the fields' headings either as rows or columns!!

You can create a chart based on the pivot data by a simple click!!
Please follow these steps to create the Pivot table.

Step 1. Click inside the table that the Pivot Table is to be based upon.

Step 2. Select Insert > Pivot Table

In the Dialog box it would have selected the entire table for you.

Please ensure that your table has NO blank rows or blank columns. Click Next.

Also choose where you want teh piovot tabel to be eitehr on the same sheet or a separate new sheet.
Press OK.

You will observe Blue lines and selected areas Drop page Fields Here, Drop Row Fields here, Drop Column Fields here and Drop Data Items Here. And on the right hand side you should be able to see Pivot table Field list which should contain all the field headings.

Simply drag and drop the fields in the relevant area. Please note that there is no right or wrong way when dragging the fields. It depends on you and your specific requirements how you would like the data to be displayed.

NB: In the "Drop Data Items Here" please drop the field that contains number as this is the data that will be totaled i.e. Sum/Min/Max/Average, etc..
If you do drop a field that has text in the Drop Data item then it automatically counts it.


I hope this has helped. Please mark this post as resolved if this has helped in answering your query!!


Kindest Regards

Rajeev Rawat
MOS Master Instructor 2000/2003
MCAS Master Instructor 2007