Excel is a great tool for data manipulation. One feature that can come in handy is the ability to pivot a data row into a column or pivot data in a column of information into a row.
It’s actually quite easy to do data pivots in Excel. Pivoting into the horizontal or vertical form that you need is just a few clicks away.
I’ve been doing pivots primarily in Office 2007, but the principals should stay the same in more modern versions of Excel.
Here, step-by-step, is how to pivot your data:
- In your Excel Worksheet select either the row or column of text you want to pivot
- Use the Ctrl-C key combination to copy the data
- Now click on the starting cell where you want to pivot your data to
- Right-Click the starting cell to show the Options window
- Select the option to Paste Special
- In the Paste Special popup window click the Transpose checkbox at the bottom right
- Click the OK button: Your data will now appear pivoted
I hope this tip has been useful to you. Please leave a comment below if you have other handy Excel tips to share.
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What if you want to use the same starting cell?
When you try to Paste starting in the same cell, it says “This selection isn’t valid. Make sure the copy and paste areas don’t overlap unless they are the same size and shape.”
I tried using Cmd-X to Cut rather than Copy before pasting, but it doesn’t even let you Paste Special at all in that case.
Cheers,
Laurence