Ever wondered how to get percentage of another value in Excel pivot tables, like this:
In this tip, learn how to create such calculations using Excel pivot tables.
Note: this tip is not compatible with older versions of Excel. If you are using Excel 2007 / 2010 / 2013, then please install free Power Pivot add-in to create measures.
Step 1: Create a data model pivot table from your data
Let’s say you have some ledger entries data like this, in a table named data:
Go to Insert > Pivot Table and create a data model pivot table from this. Make sure you check “Add this data to the data model” option.
Step 2: Create a measure to calculate percentage of another value in Excel pivot tables
Now that we have a data model pivot, you can add measures to calculate various interesting things. Let’s create a measure to calculate the amount as a percentage of sales. To do that, right click on table in fields list and click on “Add Measure…” option.
Write below measure:
=SUM(data[Amount]) / CALCULATE(SUM(data[Amount]) , ALL(data), data[Category]="Sales")
And click ok. Now your measure has been created. Add this to the pivot table values area and you can see other values as % of sales. Cool no?
How does this work?
There are two parts in this calculation.
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SUM(data[Amount]): gives the total amount for the category / sub-category in the pivot table rowCALCULATE(SUM(data[Amount]) , ALL(data), data[Category]="Sales"): calculates the total amount for “Sales” category by first removing filters on the data table { ALL(data) part } and then setting a filter with data[Category]=”Sales”
If all of this sounds like Greek and Latin, then check out my excellent introduction to DAX page first. You will learn how DAX works with simpler examples.
If you want to show the percentages only for non-sales category:
then you can use below measure definition:
=IF(HASONEVALUE(data[Category]), IF(values(data[Category])<>"Sales", sum(data[Amount]) / CALCULATE(sum(data[Amount]), all(data), data[Category]="Sales"), blank()), blank())
See all this in action – Video tutorial on “How to calculate percentage of another value in Excel pivot tables”
Check out this short video to understand how to create your percentage of sales measure in Excel. You can also watch it on Chandoo.org YouTube Channel.
Download percentage calculations pivot table example
Click here to download example workbook for this tip. Right click on the measures and select “Edit” to see the DAX formula.
More advanced pivot table tips
Been making pivot tables for a while and want to graduate to next level? Check out below tips:
- Distinct count in Excel Pivot Tables
- Rank totals with in a category in pivot table
- First and last date of a sale using pivot tables
- Generate combinations of two lists quickly
- Excel for accounting – 6 part tutorial
- More on Excel pivot tables & Power Pivot
Pivot much? What is the coolest pivot you have built
I build pivot tables every day, even on those unfortunate days when I don’t get to work on Excel or Power BI (yes, I build them in my mind on those days, you silly). They are powerful, useful and essential.
What about you? What is the coolest pivot you have built? Please, pretty please, do tell me in the comments. Off you go.
8 Responses to “Top 5 keyboard shortcuts for Excel Charts”
As far as I remember (checked, again, 2 minutes ago) in my "Excel 2013" in order to select various chart elements I need to use the Arrow keys and not the TAB key.
Practically, the TAB key does nothing (within a Chart).
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Michael (Micky) Avidan
Thanks for pointing this out. This is how I remember it too, but when I was recording the video yesterday, only TAB key worked. MS must have changed the keys in Excel 2016. I have edited the post to include both keys.
The key navigation on charts is different in 2016.
TAB cycles through a layer of objects (SHIFT+TAB cycles backwards)
ENTER move down a layer
ESC moves up a layer
So on a column chart with title/legend/data labels if you select the plotarea the TAB will go through Title > Legend > Plotarea.
ENTER at plotarea will then select Vertical axis. Tab will take you through
Horizontal axis > gridlines > Series > Horizontal Axis.
ENTER with series selected will then allow you to TAB through individual data points and data labels.
If you ENTER on datalabels you can TAB through each data label.
ALT + F1 : to create default chart
ALT+E S T = CTRL + ALT + V, T : I find that easier to remember
I second what Michael already said about TAB and arrow keys. I can't help but think if this is related to the "," or ";" as separator. I prefer to use the chart tools - layout- drop down box, anyway.
Got to be F11 for instant charting. Highlight your data , hit F11 and voila! ?
Ctrl+1 is the most important chart shortcut. In fact, it works for any Excel object: whatever is selected, Ctrl+1 opens the task pane or dialog to format that object.
Somewhere along the line, maybe when Excel 2016 came out, the arrow keys stopped working to cycle through the elements of a chart. But what works is holding Ctrl while clicking the arrow keys. I haven't gotten used to the Tab and other keys, but as long as Ctrl+Arrow works, I'm good.
And F4 used to be so helpful when formatting a lot of charts. But since Excel 2007 came out, it has been mostly useless. It used to remember a whole set of changes at once, so I get that the newer modeless dialogs make that impractical. But now it only seems to work with formatting of lines and borders, and maybe fills. I find myself writing a lot of VBA one-liners in the Immediate Window to handle these tedious formatting tasks.
after clicking on a chart, is there a shortcut key to copy it?
Thank you for the Alt E S T - tip. This is more than a time saver. Because of dynamic charts or de-activated external references to data when you make the charts, you often have empty charts that are otherwise impossible to format. So this shortcut helps adressing that. I will work with it more and see if there remain some obstacles.