For example, some versions use “Rows” and “Columns,” whereas others use “Row Labels” and “Column Labels.” Depending on which Excel version you have, the labels may be different for the lower quadrants. In the screen snap above, I’ve labeled the main areas of the pivot table. Pin Breaking down precincts by Age Groups Understanding Table Structure For example, I can take the same data and segment it by voter age group. Using a pivot table, I can continue to refine the information by selecting more fields from the PivotTable Field List. For example, the picture below shows a voter count by the political party by precinct. How many voter pamphlets do I need for Precinct 2416?Įxcel pivot tables allow you to group the spreadsheet by any of your data fields.Which precincts have the most Democrats?.What is the party breakdown by precinct?.Using an Excel pivot table, you can organize and group the same data in ways that start to answer actionable questions like: In this format, the key question it answers is how many voters exist in all the precincts.

Looking at the first 20 records, you can see the content is beyond boring.

Then, based on your field selections, Excel organizes the data to see a different view of your data.įor example, I’ve uploaded a data file with information on 4000 fictitious voters that include the following data fields: You create the pivot table by defining which fields to view and how the information should display. And like tables, you can use Excel Slicers to drill down into your data. But it also has elements of Excel Tables. It’s a little bit like transpose in Excel, where you can switch your columns and rows. You might think of a pivot table as a custom-created summary table of your spreadsheet.

Pivot tables in excel values