PivotTables in Excel

A basic introduction to creating Pivot tables in Excel. 

As usual, there are many better sources of information out there on Pivot Tables, including:

• Create a PivotTable (microsoft.com)

But my own notes below…

PivotTable vs PivotChart

First…

• PivotTable to summarize data
• PivotCharts complement them by adding visualizations

So we’re going to start with a PivotTable.

How to create a PivotTable

• Select the data range you are interested in, and select Data (from the top Menu)-> Summarize with PivotTable
• In the Field Name area at the top, select the check box for any (numeric) fields you want to add to your PivotTable
• Drag any (label) fields you want to have as rows to the Rows section
• Modify how you summarize those rows in the Values section, e.g. average, sum, count etc.

That’s it. You should have a basic Pivot Table in place.

How to redefine the PivotTable range

On a Mac:

• PivotTable Analyze (in the Excel app, not top, menu)
• Change Data Source
• Reselect the range 

Source: Change the source data for a PivotTable (microsoft.com)

 

How to turn the PivotTable into a PivotChart

On a Mac:

• Select any cell within the PivotTable
• Select the PivotTable Analyze tab -> PivotChart
• That will generate the chart for you
• To customize, go to the Design tab and, for example, select
  • Change Chart Type
  • options from Quick Layout 
• Just as with regular charts in Excel, you can also click on various chart sections and right-click -> Format Data Series/Legend/Title etc. Clicking the center of the chart and selecting Format Data Labels is particularly useful.

 

Tags: dataanalysis, excel, microsoft, pivottable