Sacha Chua - tag - pivot https://sachachua.com/blog/tag/pivot/feed/index.xml Emacs, sketches, and life Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:20:27 GMT en-US daily 1 11ty Microsoft Excel: Converting a summary table / crosstab back into data rows https://sachachua.com/blog/2014/10/microsoft-excel-converting-summary-table-crosstab-back-data-rows/ Mon, 20 Oct 2014 12:00:55 GMT geek https://sachachua.com/blog/?p=27543 I recently wanted to transform a summary table of the form:

2014-10-15 20_36_58-Microsoft Excel - Book2

into a table with rows of (activity, date, value) so that I could add columns for year and month and then analyze the data using a pivot table.

It turns out that you can do this with another pivot table, yay! I followed this tutorial to convert my summary columns into data rows using Microsoft Excel 2010.

  1. Press Alt-D, P to get to the secret pivot table wizard that's different from the one you get from Insert > Pivot table.
  2. Choose Multiple consolidation ranges. Click Next.
  3. Choose I will create the page fields. Click Next.
  4. Select the range and add it. Go through the rest of the wizard to create a pivot table.
  5. Remove the row and column fields.
  6. Double-click on the total.

You should now see a table with the data from your crosstab.

2014-10-15 20_43_25-Microsoft Excel - Book2

Neato! Pivot tables are even cooler than I thought.

You can view 17 comments or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

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