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Tips for creating Pivot Tables within Excel
Pivot Tables are a means of creating cross-tab tables for the purpose of further understanding your data.
Video Tutorial:
The following five-minute tutorial provides a good outline on how to create a pivot table:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_PzoaUrW4A
Written Tutorial
To create an Excel Pivot Table, go to the Insert tab and
choose “PivotTable”, as seen to the right.
A ‘Create PivotTable’ window will then appear, and will
prompt you to select a table or range of the data you
would like to analyze. Excel will generally highlight your
data for you, and display the selection as ‘marching ants’.
Review the selection to decide if it is the correct dataset
you would like to review, or if you need to revise it.
The ‘Create PivotTable’ window will also ask you where
you would like the PivotTable placed. You may either
place the table in a new worksheet, or in your existing
worksheet. Most choose to place it in a new worksheet.
Creating the Table
Once you have selected your data, click ‘Ok’. You will
then see a blank table, as shown to the right. The
‘PivotTable Field List’ will also appear (as seen on
page 2). The Field List contains all of the column
headers (or ‘Fields’) that you included in your data
selection. It is up to you to choose which fields you
would like to include in your table, and how you would
like it displayed.
Create the Pivot Table by clicking and dragging the
Pivot Table Field List items you want to analyze into one
of four areas:
The ‘Values’ area is where your data is displayed, and quantifies your main data question.
The ‘Row Labels’ and ‘Column Labels’ are the fields you would like your data quantified in relation to.
The ‘Report Filter’ area allows you to choose the option of summarizing data items by only showing data
related to a specific category or classification.
