Counting with PivotTables

Suppose you have a data table set up in Excel that represents your club membership. In the first column are the names of club members. In the second column are the cities in which the members live. If you want to find out how many people live in each city, there are several methods you can choose. One method is to create a PivotTable.

To create a PivotTable on your data, follow these steps:

1. Select a cell within your data table.
2. Choose the PivotTable and PivotChart Report option from the Data menu. Excel begins the PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard.

3. Choose the Microsoft Excel List or Database option.
4. Indicate you want to create a PivotTable, then click on Next.
5. In the Range box, make sure your entire data table is selected, then click on Next.
6. Indicate you want to put the PivotTable in a new worksheet, then click on Finish. Excel creates the bare-bones PivotTable worksheet, and the PivotTable Field List dialog box is visible.
7. Drag the City field button from the PivotTable dialog box to the Row area of the PivotTable.
8. Drag the Name field button from the PivotTable dialog box to the Data area of the PivotTable. Your PivotTable is complete.

The above steps won't work, however, if you are using Excel 97. Follow these steps instead:

1. Select a cell within your data table.
2. Choose the PivotTable Report option from the Data menu. Excel begins the PivotTable Wizard.
3. Choose the Microsoft Excel List or Database option and click on Next.
4. In the Range box, make sure your entire data table is selected, then click on Next.
5. Drag the City field button to the Row area of the PivotTable builder.
6. Drag the Name field button to the Data area of the PivotTable builder.
7. Click on Finish. A new worksheet is created that contains your PivotTable.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3165) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Counting with PivotTables.