A Guide To Creating A Pivot Table In Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a powerful and robust application — but are you a bit intimidated by it?

It’s OK if you are, you’re not alone. Don’t let that stop you from learning the basics of using Excel, so you can become a more effective and productive user.

Start today by learning how to create and use a pivot table…

What Is A Pivot Table?

A pivot table is a table of grouped values that aggregates the individual items of a more extensive table within one or more discrete categories. It makes analysis and review much easier when dealing with large tables and data sets.

Features include:

  • Filters: Allows you to determine which data is incorporated in a given table’s results
  • Columns: Allows you to view data as summarized by field values and for any given field.
  • Rows: The same capabilities as columns, but on the horizontal plot.
  • Values: Allows you to summarize numerical fields with Sum, Count, Average, Variance, and Standard tools.

How To Create A Pivot Table

  • Start with an Excel table
    1. Choose a cell in your data range
    2. Navigate to the Insert tab
    3. Select Tables – Table
    4. Highlight the entire range of data
    5. Check the “My table has headers” option
    6. Click OK
  • Name your new table
    1. Choose a cell in the table
    2. Select the Design tab
    3. Enter your table’s name under Properties
    4. Click Enter
  • Create a pivot table
    1. Choose a cell in your data range
    2. Navigate to the Insert tab
    3. Select Tables – Pivot Table
    4. Choose where you want to create the pivot table (New Worksheet or Existing Worksheet)
    5. Click OK

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