Excel pivot tables are very useful and powerful feature of MS Excel. They are be used to create instant summaries, reports and data analysis from your raw data.
In this page, learn all about how to create an Excel pivot table and customize it.
Table of Contents
What are Excel Pivot Tables?
A pivot table turns your data into report format. Here is a sample Pivot table from sales data, showing total sales by region.
How to create a Pivot Table?
We will use 2019 sales data of a fictional company. This data contains 466 rows of sales information in columns – Month, Salesman, Region, Product, No. Customers, Net Sales, Profit / Loss. Here is a preview of our data.
Download the sample data & example pivot tables here.
To create a pivot table showing totals sales by region, follow these steps.
- Select any cell in the data.
- Go to Insert ribbon and click “Pivot Table” button.
- Click ok on the next screen.
- You will be taken a new spreadsheet with blank Pivot Table canvas. Here, using the Pivot Table Fields panel set “Regions” field to row label area, “Products” to “Filter” area and “Net Sales” to values area. See below illustration.
Your pivot table will be ready. We can see that “West” is our best region. This is why Pivot tables are easy for finding answers to common business questions.
Two dimensional Pivots - Row & Column fields
You can add fields to both “Row” and “Column” label area of a pivot. Such Pivot Tables are normally called two dimensional pivots. Here is a demo of a two dimensional pivot table showing Total Sales by Region & Sales Person.
Multi-dimensional Pivots - Row & Column fields
You can also add more than one item to “Row” or “Column” label area. This creates a multi-dimensional Pivot Report. Here is one such pivot report showing total sales by Region, Sales Person & Product for selected months.
How to format Pivot Table values?
By default, numbers in Pivot Tables tend to just look like zip codes, without any proper formatting. This is easy to fix though. Simply right click on the values and use “Value Field Settings” to set up the formatting. To set currency formatting for our Total sales by region Pivot Report,
- Go to value field settings
- Click on Number Format button
- Set up the formatting to “Currency”
- Done.
See this illustration.
Sorting in Excel Pivot Tables
You can easily sort pivot report by ascending or descending order of the value. To do this, just right click on the value, select Sort > and specify the order.
Here is an example of sorted pivot report of Number of customers by Sales person.
Filtering Excel Pivot Tables
You are looking at Regional total sales and want to know what the total is for just “RapidZoo” product. You can do this by filtering the pivot table. Excel offers two powerful ways to filter Pivot Tables
- Report filters
- Slicers
Both methods are illustrated below. Read on to learn how to use them.
Filtering with Report Filters
Report filter is a great way to restrict the data that is flowing to your pivot. To set them up, just add the field to “Filters” area in the fields panel. Now, using the filter button next to “Product”, select the product you want.
Here is a quick demo of report filters in action.
Filtering with Slicers
There are a ton of cool features in Excel Pivot Tables, but slicers are hands-down the best feature. At-least, that is what I think. They make filtering and ad-hoc data analysis a breeze.
A slicer is a visual filter. You can add a slicer on any field by right clicking on it from the fields panel. See the illustration “Adding filters to a pivot report” from above.
Once you have a slicer on Product, simply click on any product name to see the report for that.
Here is a quick demo of Pivot Table with slicers.
Other kinds of filtering - Value & Label Filters
Apart from report filters & Slicers, Pivot Tables also allow you to filter by a field or value.
Field or Label Filter: If you don’t want to see “Middle” region in a row label area, just click on the filter button next to “Row Labels” and uncheck the region. This type of filtering is called Label Filtering.
Value Filter: If you want to see just the top 2 regions by total sales, then you need a value filter. Simply go to filter button next to row labels and using value filters, apply a top 10 filter but set it to top 2 values by “Sum of net sales.”
Changing Calculations in Pivot Tables
The default calculation in Pivot Tables is SUM for number fields and COUNT for all others. But you can also customize the calculation easily. Just right click on the value field and choose different type of summary from right click menu.
Changing from SUM to AVERAGE in a Pivot Table
Here is a quick illustration of how to change calculation type from “SUM” to “AVERAGE”.
Pivot Table Layouts & Colors
By default, Excel Pivot Tables are in compact layout. This means, if you add multiple fields to row label area, they will all be shown in same column, with indentation.
You can change the layout of a pivot table to other formats too.
- Compact form (default)
- Outline form
- Tabular form
You can change the layout from Pivot Table Design ribbon.
Here is an example of same Pivot Table in both Compact and Tabular layouts.
Styling & colors of Excel Pivot Tables
You can apply any formatting to the pivot tables. MS Excel has some very good pivot table styles. Just select pivot table cells, go to Pivot Table Design ribbon. See below image to understand various options available.
Visualizing with Pivot Charts
You can use Pivot Charts to visualize the same information in a graphic format. Here is a sample Pivot Chart of Net Sales by Region & Product.
Steps for creating a Pivot Chart:
- Select any cell in the Pivot Table.
- Click on Insert > Chart or Analyze > Pivot Chart button.
- Insert the type of chart you want.
- You will get a Pivot Chart.
Interactive Pivot Chart with Slicers
Slicers make it incredibly easy to create interactive charts. Once you have a regular Pivot Chart, simply add a slicer to it (right click on the field in “Pivot Table Fields” area and select “Add as Slicer”). You now have an interactive Pivot Chart.
Here is a demo of interactive Pivot Chart.
Updating Pivot Tables (Refresh)
Whenever you have new data, just use “Refresh” button to update your Pivot Tables. You can find this button in multiple places.
- Data ribbon
- Pivot Table Analyze ribbon
- On right clicking any Pivot Table
- By pressing ALT+F5 (refreshes single pivot) or CTRL+ALT+F5 (refreshes all pivots)
What if you want to point Pivot to new data?
Select any cell in the Pivot Table and from Analyze ribbon, use the “Change Data Source” button. Point input data to a new source. As long as the new data has same fields, everything will work smoothly.
Pivot Tables in Excel - Complete video tutorial
I have made a 21 minute video explaining how to create, format, customize, visualize, filter and refresh Pivot Tables. This video is packed with many tricks, ideas and inspiration. Check it out below.
Download - Sample data & example Pivot Tables
Please click here to download the sample file for this article. It contains fictional sales data, several example pivot tables, charts and additional resources.
Examine the pivot table settings and use the data to learn more.
Next Steps
Now that you are familiar with Pivot Tables, explore these additional pages to learn more about data analysis & reporting.
Beginner:
- Pivot Table from multiple tables – Data Model & Relationships
- Number and Percentages in same Pivot
- 5 Pivot tables to try when you have too much data
- Sub-totals but only on one level
- Distinct count in Excel Pivot Tables
- How to use Report Filters
Intermediate & Advanced Users:
- All you need to know about Slicers
- 6 Time Saving Pivot Table Tricks
- Advanced Pivot Table Tricks
- Conditional formatting for Pivot Tables
- Introduction to GETPIVOTDATA
- Getting started with Power Pivot – Percentage of something calculation example
Recommended Websites & Books:
These are my favorite places to learn more about Pivot Tables.
Websites:
- Excel Pivot Tables page on Contextures
- Pivot Table tips from Excel Jet
- 50 things you can do with Pivot Tables from MyExcelOnline
Books:
- Excel Pivot Table data crunching by Bill Jelen
- MS Excel Data Analysis and Business Modeling by Wayne Winston
- Excel Bible by J Walkenbach
Courses:
Happy Learning.
61 Responses to “Custom Number Formats (Multiply & Divide by any Power of 10)”
Okay, that is pretty awesome. Thanks for the tip Kyle & Hui!
This gets me closer to a solution for reporting financial in (000's) but I am still left with the rounding problem when adding these numbers. As an example 1,234,567 using 0,###, I get 1,235 which is great but when I sum 1,234,567 and 1,234,567 in this format 1,235 + 1,235 I get 2,469 instead of 2,470. 2,469 is technically correct, but for those who cannot see the full number the sum appears incorrect. Is there a fix for this?
Steve, I often have to display numbers in a similar fashion. I have to ask though, is it wise or even necessary to force the display to '2,470'? As long as it is understood that some rounding is going on, it should be acceptable that the numbers won't add up on screen. In fact displaying these incorrectly (outside of the realm of rounding) seems misleading?
Often, I will include somewhere on the page, prominently enough to be seen but not obtrusive, "In Thou." or "In Mils."
Alternatively you could make the custom format "#,K" which automatically suggests rounding.
I hear you, but that all numbers tie is absolutely expected at my company. As a former CFO explained to me years ago, if the numbers don't add up it brings into question the validity of the report (as he chucked my report into the trash). Experience has taught me that he was absolutely right. This can take Sr. Management and Board of Directors off the focus of what the report and presentation is about. So the hours it takes me to tick and tie the reports is well spent (and cheap) compared to the time spent and repercussions up the ladder. I wish we could show the complete numbers in these presentation reports (30 slides per quarter) but it is just too busy on the screen.
I do put (000's) at the top left of each report (we report in thousands).
Thanks for your response!
Well, there really is no way to solve it other than rounding to the nearest X. (since that is what Excel is doing with the format, rounding to the nearest 1000)
Here is a formula, for a total, that rounds each number in A1 to A100 to the nearest 1000 and then sums it up.
=SUMPRODUCT(ROUND(A1:A100,-3))
It has the same effect has rounding each individually but it leaves the individual items alone so you can keep accurate percentages.
You are right, the fact is we are taking away three places in each number by rounding to thousands and holes are naturally created that must be filled or explained. But it is still great to have the discussion. I learn about how others think and put another tool or two in my Excel toolbox.
I greatly appreciate this!!
Steve,
I have to agree with Cameron. I made a similar post yesterday morning that was lost with the server migration. There is a certain level of displayed inaccuracy that is expected when reporting in 000s or 00s. It is best to leave everything as is, which will provide the most accurate results. As Cameron suggested, stating it is in 000s would be the best approach, and if desired, stating that there may be rounding differences as well. I work in finance/accounting as well and I never round except for check totals (due to the floating point issues).
Kyle
I really appreciate your response. You are both correct with expected inaccuracies. In my situation, the inaccuracies are best done in plugs. If I have to round one of the larger numbers (say advertising) up or down 1 (1,000) to get the number to balance it is much cleaner and reduces questions. Of course it also takes more time and makes the process manual.
Try this:
=(ROUND(A1,-3)+ROUND(A2,-3))
Thanks for the post. I currently use the round commands (round, roundup and rounddown) but was hoping to get away from that. In a simple or single sum the round command works well but when I start using those rounded sums to get to a bottom line (Profit/Loss) or on a balance sheet, they can veer out of balance from actual final numbers more often than I like to see. It especially gets ugly in % change. I spend a lot of time verifying that everything tics and ties. I'm still going to try this format on my next financial presentation with the rounds to see how well it works.
Thanks again!!
Another handy technique is to use the text function. For example, to display a date in a format that you want, you can do something like:
=text( A1, "yyyy-MM-dd" )
Lots of potential variations there, but it lets you format A1 however you want it, without altering it.
side note, in some languages, I've seen other choices such as "jjjj-MM-dd" so if you care about internationalization, try to make your formatting easy to change by making the format text refer to a single cell.
Try setting precision as diplayed in the advanced options.
Thanks. This is a cool new feature to me, unfortunately in this instance the original number is lost to the rounded number (1,234,567 becomes 1,235,000). Great tip for future reference, I'm already thinking of ways I can use it.
Thanks again!!
Excellent tip! Thank you.
nice.. post
Regards,
Saran
lostinexcel.blogspot.com
Steve, this is an excellent tip. But with the % sign used to Multiply, the symbol still shows up in the cells, even with usage. Am I missing anything else?
@Dhakkanz
Did you put a Ctrl J in front of the % sign ?
The Ctrl J trick works but not very well if the space is limited. For example, I want to show 9E-12 as 9 (units is in picoseconds). If I limit the cell width to less than 10 characters then this trick does not work.
Any other suggestions if the space is limited?
this is very clever. i like the concept. there is something about the concept that makes me uneasy... i think it is reading this article after having finished the great series of articles on auditing and spreadsheet risk....
i recently stumbled on a software company that was addressing the rounding and or formatting creating incorrect sums (visible) issue. their solution seemed hard to implement and has costs but does work quite well. i think a well written vba program would be more flexible (for solving rounding/formatting issues). here is their link:
http://www.think-cell.com/products/round/overview.shtml
I was so happy to see such a custom format. I had not imagined that there would be such a simple solution to the problem. Thanks a lot.
This post will be very useful to Engineers like me who have to do a lot of electrical design calculations in excel. Very often we have to deal with *1000 or /1000 value of current or voltage For ex. millivolts mV, milliampere mA, milliwatt mW.
With this formatting trick, I can now remove all the *1000 or /1000 I had to add in my formulas to take care of the multiplier factor.
🙂
However,
I have one new problem using this custom format. My Excel uses German standard way of representing numbers i.e. a "comma" to denote decimal point and a "dot or punkt" to denote thousands ('1000s) placeholder. Alos, eventually the sheets I make will be read on German Excel only.
Can someone post a German equivalent to the same formatting?
Thanks again.
Thanks very much.
The trick was very usefull.
Problems will be very simple when they are solved!
Thanks again.
[...] Microsoft – Custom Number Formatting > Chandoo – Factor 10 number scaling > ASAP Utilities – Create a bulleted list > Daily Dose of Excel – Star Rating [...]
[...] Microsoft – Custom Number Formatting > Chandoo – Factor 10 number scaling > ASAP Utilities – Create a bulleted list > Daily Dose of Excel – Star Rating [...]
Hi Thank you for the tutorial. It is very useful and clear.
And I have a question related to this format.
Is it possible to multiply by a different number instead of 10?
I don't want to create a new column to do the multiplication.
Let's say it will automatically multiply 2 when I enter 19 and will show 38 in the cell.
Thanks for reading and hope you could help me.
OK so I'm trying to use this to format a cell so that this:
0.09
0.07
-0.14
Will display as:
9.0%
7.0
(14.0)
Looking to have the decimal points align but not show the % symbol after the first row. The problem with the above technique is that formating the wrap text will eliminate any placeholders you put in place to help with the alignment formating. Is there any workaround to this?
@Matt
Are the 3 values in the same cell?
If so I doubt you can do what you want
Different cells, just gave 3 as an example. Effectively the cell would multiply by 100 but still give the spacing as if a % were there, ie putting a _% effect at the end of the cell
@Matt
If I use the format
#,#Ctrl J%
I get:
9
7
-14
You have to enable Word Wrap in those cells
and then adjust the width accordingly
[...] Hi, You can do this with custom number formatting. There are limits to what you can do with it, but for your specific example, a format like this might work: 0000" / (4837)" To learn more about custom number formatting see: Create or delete a custom number format - Excel - Office.com Excel Custom Formats: Numbers/Text Formats in Excel Spreadsheets Custom Number Formats (Multiply & Divide by any Power of 10) | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Exc... [...]
okay idk what i did wrong, maybe my excel is being stupid but its not working 🙁
i originally have 52.6625 (it's in thousands) so it's really 52,662.50.
if I put in the *1000 formatting above i get this result:
52,662.5%%%
if I try it without the carrots i get:
52,662.5CtrlJ%%%
Also if I go back into the custom formatting, it changed it to:
#,###.#%%%
I dont know why it put a "/" in between the Ctrl either. Any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong??
Thanks!
nvm! im dumb and realized you don't type the control j but actually hit control+j
Dear Hui,
I have been reading your posts with awe. Thanks to Chandoos's work. I need your help. How do I custom format a number to display in lakhs as used in India.....123456789.00 as 12,34,56,789.00 (twelve crores thirty four lakhs fifty six thousand seven hundred eighty nine.....I understand excel will show numbers in thousands only....
Thanks
@Mathew
Try using the Google Custom Search box at the top right of every page at Chandoo.org
There are a few existing posts on Indian number formats including:
http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/07/26/indian-currency-format-excel/
This site is also very useful: http://jonvonderheyden.net/excel/a-comprehensive-guide-to-number-formats-in-excel/
Thanks for this tip. I have two questions:
1. I need to divide numbers by 1000 but leave no decimals.
At the moment the format I'm using from your site is # ##0.###.
However, this is leaving me with a result with a . on the end.
i.e 1000 becomes 1. instead of just 1 with no point on the end.
2. My spreadsheets has a number of pivot tables representing a sheet that automatically updates from the accounting database.
So lots of ways of analyzing sales.
Is there a way I can set the format once for a value instead of having to format on every sheet?
All help much appreciated
@Caron
A1. To divide by a thousand and have no decimals use code #,
Looking at your codes in a Non-English excel it may be #.
A2. You could try applying a style to the Pivot Table area
You should also read:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/excel-help/refresh-pivottable-data-HA101906071.aspx
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2003-excel/losing-formats-when-i-refresh-the-pivottable/372c5001-21ba-4ee1-b4f7-7c7758f8737f
Thanks! will give it a try.
Caron
Unfortunately it seems this work-around has now been semi-disabled in Excel 2010.
When you first enter the number format, the application accepts it and everything works fine. But if you save the file and re-open it: excel has modified the number format, and it breaks the functionality.
Specifically: all the formats that make use of a comma AND percentage sign in the same (sub)-format, excel now DELETES all trailing commas in the saved custom-number-format string. Hence when you reopen the file all formats like "mA" or "mV" are now displayed 1000x their actual value.
Example:
Try to apply: 0.0,"mV"%%%
Excel will strip the comma and save it as: 0.0"mV"%%%
(which obviously won't produce the desired effect)
Funny enough, excel WILL apply the correct number format TEMPORARILY to the open document: but if you re-open the file, POOF! all number formats wrecked.
(Perhaps older versions always saved the number format wrongly too, and they have changed the way number formats are refreshed upon opening the file. Or they could have purposely disabled this - who knows)
So sad. This was an almost perfect work-around.
I would be interested which versions of Excel this still works in.
Hi,
Is there a way to automatically include the 2 digit year into a custom format for invoice numbering ...?
Is there a trick to combine functions (such as today() or year()..) in a given custom format ?
Thanks
You could certainly see your skills within the work you write. The world hopes for more passionate writers like you who arent afraid to say how they believe. Always follow your heart. cgaedfkafgde
I think you have observed some very interesting details , appreciate it for the post. kabddabcdfag
Hi,
Is there a way to add 100 to only the number format? I have a graph which shows the diff from 100, e.g. 89 is -ve 11 from 100 and 139 is +ve 39. I want my graph to calculate based on -11 & 39 but shows 89 & 139. I can do this for the positive number using the format #,##100 but it shows -111 instead of 89 for the negative.
Not sure if I was very clear in what I was looking for, but any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Roshan
just to update that, I need only the data labels for the graph to show 89 & 139
dear Sir
Thanks
Dear Sir
I read your article. I want to display absolute figures in lacs -
/1000000
Put 0.######,,,%% in Custom Number formatting
want Rs. 1662052 as 16.62
but getting as 1.6222052%%
Trying Ctrl+J as madam kyle suggested but %% are reflecting on excel screen and not getting hided so cannot send report to Top Management. Kindly assist. I think I am making a mistake in Ctrl+J step.
Thanks a lot in advance.
warm regards,
Deepak Vats
@Hui
Sir great work, you helped me alot.
Thanks for sharing wonderful tricks.
@Deepak
First make your cell vertical alignment to top + wrap text
then use this in custom format:
#,##0.00,,, %%
Press Ctrl+J before %
It will looks like:
#,##0.00,,,
%%
and you are done.
Regards,
Hi Guys,
I have created custom format ##,##0.0,,, CTRL + J %% to display
10000 as 0.1
100000 as 1.0
1000000 as 10.0
10000000 as 100.0
100000000 as 1,000.0
so forth.
The problem i am facing is that once i applied this format , save and close the workbook. the next time i open it the format get change like for 100000 it shows me 1.0 before closing the workbook ans 10.0 when i open it again.
please advice
VSM
Any help guys!
VSM
How can i attached the images here
I am trying to utilize this technique in order to calculate basis points. Basis points multiple % by 10,000 in order to find their value. For example, 1% would be 100 bps. I have a % field that calculates the bps % and then used the formatting of #,#.#%% to try and arrive at the formatting for bps. However, since the field is linked to a percentage, it is formatting as 100%%. I need the percentages to be removed and a "bps" to be replaced.
@Rachel
I don't believe that what you want can be done in 1 cell
You may have to use a helper column to assist you
Hi Hui - I don't have the option to create another field as I am already using a calculated field to arrive at %. To find the bps, I calculated MU% in a calculated field. I then pulled in the MU% field again and found the "Difference from" to find the % change. I then formatted the % change to x10,000 but it's not showing up correctly.
Great trick, thanks a lot!
I have used it to show pp instead of %,
my custom format looks like this:
0"pp?"%
I have noticed that this method works well with .xls files in compatibilty mode. However, I have had trouble with it using .xlsx files. Specifically, I can get the method to work in the newer formats on initial capture, but when I save, close, and reopen the workbook, it does not work after the reopen – the control-j seems to vanish.
Has anyone else seen this behavior?
Hi Mark,
We too are facing similar issue. We are using office 365 version of excel. Did you find any workaround for this issue.
With all the format codes I was finding I couldn't shrink the excel cell width without the numbers turning to #####.
Apply shrink to fit, then word wrap and all was good.
Firstly i would like to thank you for the solution you provided.
As Mark and Brian has mentioned, we too are facing the similar issue. The custom formatting disappears after saving and reopening the excel file. We are using Office365 version.
The custom format that we are using is :
0.#####,,,%%
0.#####0,,,%%
Any help would be highly appreciated.
Hi People,
The article is amazing!!
I am looking to divide numbers by 100.
I am using conditional formatting, wherein when a user selects "Hundreds" from the dropdown menu, entire numbers in all worksheets get divided by 100 and if one chooses, "Normal", normal numbers are displayed.
Now it is working properly, however, when I close and reopen the excel sheet, the entire formatting changes.
Any workaround?
I need to display normal as well as divide by 100 numbers.
I am using excel 365, any new function in it?
Thanks,
Rohit
I used this a couple of years ago to discover use of the comma. I had a vague recollection that you described how to go in the opposite direction.
When I couldn't figure out how to hide the percent signs even using , I downloaded your example file. That file is an xls file and it opened in compatability mode. I wonder if you have a solution for Office 365, or it I would have to save my file in an earlier version of Excel (I won't do it, BTW). Thanks.
Best regards,
Thanks for the formatting tips. Very helpful...I'll try to become awesome.