Formatting a PivotTable

And how do we format a PivotTable?

Let's suppose that we have the following PivotTable (I recommend you check this post):

Now we will format this report a bit.

Let's begin showing the net sales in £s.

To do that we see that in the field of values we have the sum of sales.

If we now click on the arrow next to Sum of Net Sales and select Value Field Settings, Excel will show us the Value Field Settings dialog box.

We now click the Number Format box which will show us the Format Cells dialog box.

And here is where we format the cells in a way that we like. In my case, in British Pounds (£s) and without decimals.

It looks better, doesn't it?

Now we are going to format the PivotTable itself.

Click on any cell inside the PivotTable and a tab will show on the top of the menus named PivotTable Tools. Go to the Design menu.

This menu has 3 blocks:

• Layout: This block allows you to add subtotals and grand totals to the PivotTable as well as modify design basics.

• PivotTable Style Options: The options in this block allow you to restrict the selection of styles shown in the block named PivotTable Styles. That is, if you select the "Banded Rows" option, then the styles displayed under PivotTable Styles have banded rows.

• PivotTable Styles: Sample gallery of styles that can be applied to the PivotTable. With just one click the desired style will be applied to the table.

Ok, I am going to choose a style that I like.

This last report is better formatted (at least for me!) than then first one that we showed, and you have seen how easy it was to do it.