Pivot Table Data Crunching

3. Customizing Fields in a Pivot Table

In this Chapter

The Need to Customize 35

Displaying the PivotTable Field Dialog Box 35

Customizing Field Names 37

Applying Numeric Formats to Data Fields 38

Changing Summary Calculations 39

Adding and Removing Subtotals 41

Using Running Total Options 43

The Need to Customize

As you build your pivot table reports with the PivotTable Wizard, Excel is busily adding fields and performing calculations in the background.

The wizard is designed to always sum numeric data and to always count text data. The wizard allows you to produce a standard pivot table in a few seconds. However, sometimes the PivotTable Wizard doesn’t quite hit the mark.

A common problem is that Excel chooses to count data that you wanted summed. ...