What is a pivot table?
Pivot tables are a tool that you can use to summarize, analyze and present data. They are based on the idea that you summarize data by grouping it in rows and columns. You can use this capability to answer different questions like “which products did most people buy last year?” or “where does my company have the most sales?”.
History of Pivot Tables?
Pivot tables were first created by Bill Jelen at Analytical Software in 1987. They were first implemented by Microsoft in Excel 97, where you could select data in a table and then automatically create a pivot table from it.
How to use Pivot Tables?
You can use pivot tables to summarize data. To summarize (summarize means to sum up all items), select the option Summarize in the Data menu. This will create a pivot table based on your selected data.
After that, you will be able to select certain numbers in the rows and columns by checking their checkboxes or by using your keyboard. This will create new rows and columns based on the selected data. For example, a summary of a price comparison table would look like this:
