Microsoft Office

Part V
Analyzing Data with Excel
A Reverse Pivot Table
Excel’s Pivot Table feature creates a summary table from a list. But what if you want to perform the opposite
operation? Often, you may have a two-way summary table, and it would be convenient if the data were in
the form of a list.
In the figure, range A1:E13 contains a summary table with 48 data points. Notice that this summary table is
similar to a pivot table. Column G:I shows part of a 48-row table that was derived from the summary table. In
other words, every value in the original summary table gets converted to a row, which also contains the
region name and month. This type of table is useful because it can be sorted and manipulated in other ways.
And, you can create a pivot table from this transformed table.
The companion CD-ROM contains a workbook, reverse pivot.xlsm, which has a macro that will convert any
two-way summary table into a three-column normalized table.
Referencing Cells within a Pivot Table
In some cases, you may want to create a formula that references one or more cells within a pivot table.
Figure 35.20 shows a simple pivot table that displays income and expense information for three years. In
this pivot table, the Month field is hidden, so the pivot table shows the year totals.
ON the CD-ROM
This workbook, named income and expenses.xlsx, is available on the companion CD-ROM.
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