Pivot Table Data Crunching for Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007

Chapter 1. Pivot Table Fundamentals

<feature><title>In This Chapter</title>

• What Is a Pivot Table? 11

• Why Should You Use a Pivot Table? 12

• When Should You Use a Pivot Table? 13

• The Anatomy of a Pivot Table 14

• Pivot Tables Behind the Scenes 16

• Limitations of Pivot Table Reports 17

• Next Steps 19

</feature>

What Is a Pivot Table?

Imagine that Excel is a large toolbox that contains different tools at your disposal. The pivot table is essentially one tool in your Excel toolbox. If a pivot table were indeed a physical tool that you could hold in your hand, a kaleidoscope would most accurately represent it.

When you look through a kaleidoscope at an object, you see that object in a different way. You can turn the kaleidoscope to move around the details of the ...