Excel PivotTable report: View data in its own way

The Microsoft Office Excel 2003 worksheet is an ideal tool for organizing and analyzing financial data. For example, you might create a worksheet that contains travel accommodation fees. If you need subtotals for each quarter, you know how to modify the worksheet accordingly.

But what happens when you need to view the total for a fee category by quarter? And what if you only want to see a certain category or year at a time? Can you implement these in an Excel worksheet? Of course. Is there a more easy way? There must be.

• A much easier way to

The Microsoft pivottable® report is the answer. Instead of writing complex formulas, you can use the wizard to create an interactive table that automatically extracts, organizes, and aggregates your data. You can then use the report to analyze data and compare, detect styles and relationships, and analyze trends.

For example, you can use a spreadsheet that includes travel matters ...

Excel Worksheet source

... Create a PivotTable report that summarizes employee travel totals by category and quarter.

Fees for each category, year and quarter

Now that you don't have to change the original worksheet, you can create another PivotTable report and view the data in other ways, for example, you can view travel by employee or by month without having to enter a formula.

The following explains how to quickly create a PivotTable report.

• Create data

First, create the data in the EXCEL worksheet. You can import data from an existing spreadsheet or database into a new Excel worksheet. Make sure that the data is available for the PivotTable report:

Deletes all blank rows or columns.

Deletes all automatic subtotals.

Make sure that the first row contains a descriptive title for each column.

Make sure that each column contains only one type of data-for example, one column is text and the other column is a numeric value.

• Start the pivot table and PivotChart Wizard

In an Excel worksheet, select a cell from the table from which you want to create a PivotTable report.

On the Data menu, click PivotTable and PivotChart reports to start the PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard.

What if you can't select a PivotTable report and a PivotChart report?

If the workbook is shared (Shared workbook: A workbook that allows multiple users on the network to view and revise at the same time. Each user who saves the workbook can see revisions made by other users. , the PivotTable and PivotChart commands are not available.

In the PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard-3 Step 1, specify the type of data source you want to analyze: Under, click Microsoft Office Excel list or database.

Under the type of report you want to create: under, click PivotTable.

Click Finish.

Excel inserts a new worksheet in your workbook that contains the layout area of the report, the PivotTable toolbar, and the PivotTable Field List.)