In this tutorial I will demonstrate how you can create a simple Pivot table. For those who are new to Excel i will explain what is basically the idea of Pivot tables in MS Excel. Pivot table is a data summarization tool used in data visualization applications such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc, etc. Among other functions, they can automatically count, sort, and total the data stored in one table(spreadsheet) and create a second table visualizing the summarized data.


For the purposes of this tutorial I have used Excel from Office 2007. The document used is as an example sheet called SalesReport.xltx. The input data is in the table SourceData. The actual document has 3 other tables each including a different type of Pivot table. I have chosen to use that document in mu example so that after you know the very basics you can check the settings of the already existing Pivot tables and use the different variants for your own needs.

First in this document we need to add a new worksheet. I simply press Shift+F11. Then i navigate to Insert tab and the first icon there is PivotTable.

For keeping it simple choose PivotTable. New window will open and will navigate you how to create a pivot table.

Next we click on the button at the end of the Table/Range field. We navigate to SourceData worksheet and select the entire table. Click once again to the button at the end of the input field. Leave rest as it is for now and click OK to confirm the creation of the pivot table.

Now our first Pivot table is created. A new Properties window will show on the right side of your screen. It is called PivotTable Field List. From there you can simply check the columns you want to be generated. In the below example i have checked Product and Qtr1.

Well that was it for now. If you need more information please do not hesitate to write in our forum.

For more detailed instructions you can visit Microsoft Website