XL97: PivotTable Appears Incorrect If Data Contains Merged Cell
ID: Q172990
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The information in this article applies to:
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Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
SYMPTOMS
When you create a PivotTable in a worksheet in Microsoft Excel 97, the
following problems may occur:
- The row fields or column fields contain extra "(blank)" items.
- Most of the data in the PivotTable is aligned with the "(blank)" row or
column fields instead of with the correct row or column fields.
CAUSE
This problem may occur if the list of data used to create the PivotTable
contains merged cells.
WORKAROUND
To work around this problem, unmerge any merged cells in the list of
data used to create the PivotTable, fill the unmerged cells with field
data, and update the PivotTable.
The "More Information" section in this article contains an example of the
problem.
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products
listed at the beginning of this article.
MORE INFORMATION
The problem described in the "Symptoms" section occurs because of the way
that PivotTables in Microsoft Excel 97 retrieve data from cells in a
worksheet. When you create a PivotTable, the PivotTable ignores any merged
cells in the list of data and retrieves information stored in the
individual cells. Because the cells are blank, they appear in the
PivotTable as blank fields.
Example
The following steps demonstrate the problem in Microsoft Excel 97:
- In Microsoft Excel 97, create a new workbook. In Sheet1, enter the
following data:
A1: Widget Type B1: Quarter C1: Sales
A2: Alpha B2: Q1 C2: 1
B3: Q2 C3: 2
B4: Q3 C4: 3
B5: Q4 C5: 4
A6: Bravo B6: Q1 C6: 5
B7: Q2 C7: 6
B8: Q3 C8: 7
B9: Q4 C9: 8
A10: Charlie B10: Q1 C10: 3
B11: Q2 C11: 4
B12: Q3 C12: 5
B13: Q4 C13: 6
Note that cells A3:A5, A7:A9, and A11:A13 are blank.
- Select cells A2:A5. On the Formatting toolbar, click Merge And
Center. Repeat this step with the A6:A9 and A10:A13 cell ranges.
- Select cell B5. On the Data menu, click PivotTable Report.
- In the PivotTable Wizard, do the following:
- In step 1 of the wizard, click Next.
- In step 2 of the wizard, click Next.
- In step 3 of the wizard, drag the Widget Type field to the ROW area
in the diagram. Drag the Quarter field to the COLUMN area in the
diagram. Drag the Sales field to the DATA area in the diagram. Then,
click Next.
- In step 4 of the wizard, click Existing Worksheet. Select cell A15
in the worksheet and click Finish.
The following PivotTable appears in the worksheet:
Sum of Sales Quarter
Widget Type Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Grand Total
Alpha 1 1
Bravo 5 5
Charlie 3 3
(blank) 12 15 18 45
Grand Total 9 12 15 18 54
Note that all of the items in the PivotTable are grouped in the "(blank)"
Widget Type except items in rows two, six, and ten in the worksheet.
These items are next to the original data in the merged cells so that they
are aligned with the correct Widget Types.
The items grouped into the "(blank)" Widget Type are in the same rows as
the blank cells in step 1.
Correcting the Example:
To correct the problem in the example, do the following:
- In the worksheet, click cell A2. On the Format menu, click Cells.
Click the Alignment tab. Click to clear the Merge Cells check box, and
then click OK.
- Repeat step 1 for cells A6 and A10.
- Select cell A2 and fill the value "Alpha" down column A to cell A5.
Then, fill the value "Bravo" in cell A6 down column A to cell A9 and
fill the value "Charlie" in cell A10 down column A to cell A13.
- Click any cell in the PivotTable.
- On the Data menu, click Refresh Data.
The following PivotTable appears on the worksheet:
Sum of Sales Quarter
Widget Type Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Grand Total
Alpha 1 2 3 4 10
Bravo 5 6 7 8 26
Charlie 3 4 5 6 18
Grand Total 9 12 15 18 54
This PivotTable contains the correct information.
Additional query words:
XL97 pivot table wrong order
Keywords : xlformat xlpivot
Version : WINDOWS:97
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb