Prior to a week ago I had never heard the term "Pivot Table." I am now
working on building a fairly complex workbook and I am thinking that maybe
some of what I am doing might be best accomplished using one, but I don't
actually understand what it is, or what it does. The various lookup
functions just don't seem to be strong/flexible enough for what I am doing.
Would someone please explain in "plain english" what a pivot table is and
what it does/allows you to do. All the information I have seen seem to
assume the possession of this basic knowledge, and so I am having a hard
time wrapping my brain around the instructions/concepts. If someone could
either point me in the direction of a site that has, or would be willing to
type a brief "What is a Pivot table?" I would GREATLY appreciate it.

Try these tutorials:
http://datapigtechnologies.com/ExcelMain.htm

Does that help?

***********
Regards,
Ron


"Adam Kroger @hotmail.com" wrote:

Prior to a week ago I had never heard the term "Pivot Table." I am now
working on building a fairly complex workbook and I am thinking that maybe
some of what I am doing might be best accomplished using one, but I don't
actually understand what it is, or what it does. The various lookup
functions just don't seem to be strong/flexible enough for what I am doing.
Would someone please explain in "plain english" what a pivot table is and
what it does/allows you to do. All the information I have seen seem to
assume the possession of this basic knowledge, and so I am having a hard
time wrapping my brain around the instructions/concepts. If someone could
either point me in the direction of a site that has, or would be willing to
type a brief "What is a Pivot table?" I would GREATLY appreciate it.

Adam

Debra Dalgleish has info on PT's

http://www.contextures.on.ca/tiptech.html scroll down to the "P" section.

Also Jon Peltier's "Introduction to PT's" with links back to Debra's site.

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Pivots/pivottables.htm

And don't forget Chip Pearson.

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/pivots.htm

Ed Ferrero

http://edferrero.m6.net/tutorials.shtml

Enjoy!!


Gord Dibben Excel MVP

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:39:14 -0600, "Adam Kroger"
wrote:

Prior to a week ago I had never heard the term "Pivot Table." I am now
working on building a fairly complex workbook and I am thinking that maybe
some of what I am doing might be best accomplished using one, but I don't
actually understand what it is, or what it does. The various lookup
functions just don't seem to be strong/flexible enough for what I am doing.
Would someone please explain in "plain english" what a pivot table is and
what it does/allows you to do. All the information I have seen seem to
assume the possession of this basic knowledge, and so I am having a hard
time wrapping my brain around the instructions/concepts. If someone could
either point me in the direction of a site that has, or would be willing to
type a brief "What is a Pivot table?" I would GREATLY appreciate it.

Hi Adam

You have been given some great references already. My only comment is to say
do take the time to try and learn about Pivot Tables, and just set up or
download a small example from one of those sites and just play with it.

Investment of a relatively small amount of time in learning to use them will
pay enormous dividends, and I make extensive use of them in various
applications I have developed.

Post back if you have problems.

Regards

Roger Govier


Adam Kroger <adam_kroger wrote:
Prior to a week ago I had never heard the term "Pivot Table." I am now
working on building a fairly complex workbook and I am thinking that maybe
some of what I am doing might be best accomplished using one, but I don't
actually understand what it is, or what it does. The various lookup
functions just don't seem to be strong/flexible enough for what I am doing.
Would someone please explain in "plain english" what a pivot table is and
what it does/allows you to do. All the information I have seen seem to
assume the possession of this basic knowledge, and so I am having a hard
time wrapping my brain around the instructions/concepts. If someone could
either point me in the direction of a site that has, or would be willing to
type a brief "What is a Pivot table?" I would GREATLY appreciate it.