Prevent Subtotals from Appearing

If you add more than one field to the Rows or Columns area in a pivot table, some of the fields automatically get subtotals. In the screen shot below:

  • the City field has a subtotal, because it is an outer field – there is at least one field after it in the layout. Outer fields get subtotals by default.
  • the Category field does not have a subtotal, because it is an inner field – there is no field after it in the layout. The innermost field in the Rows or Columns area doesn’t get a subtotal.

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Changing Pivot Chart Affects Excel Pivot Table

After you create a pivot table, you can insert a pivot chart, based on that pivot table. However, if you change the layout of the pivot chart, it will also change the pivot table’s layout.

For example, if I remove City from the chart in the screen shot below, the City field will also be remove from the pivot table.

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Show Survey Responses in Pivot Chart

I’ve updated one of the pivot chart sample files on my Contextures website. On the main sheet, there are two pivot charts, showing survey responses by department, and by years of service.

At the top of the sheet, you can select a question from the dropdown list, and view the survey results for that question.

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Running Total Stops at Year End

A quick way to show how amounts accumulate over time is to build a pivot table, and show the values as a running total.

However, if you group the dates by year and month, the running total stops at the end of each year, and starts again at the start of the next year. There is no setting you can adjust to change this behavior.

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