Formatting a Value Field in Pivot Tables in Microsoft excel

In this article, we will learn Formatting a Value Field in Pivot Tables in Microsoft excel.

Pivot table Scenario:

Pivot table is one of the most powerful tools of Excel. It allows you to quickly summarise a large chunk of organized data. But sometimes the values and fields pivot table created by default is not really required. By default, Excel Pivot table shows sum of numbers if you drag a number column to the value field. You may not want sum but average, or min, or max, etc… In that case you would need to access pivot value field settings.

Example :

All of these might be confusing to understand. Let's understand how to use the function using an example. Here we have a pivot table. Have a look at it.

The table shows the summary of data I have. It shows the total sales done by each region. But instead of total sales, I want to get the average sales. For that I will need to access values field settings.

Accessing Value Field Settings

To access Value Fields Settings, right click on any value field in the pivot table. A list of options will be displayed. In the end of the list (most 3rd from last) you will see value field settings. Click on it and a dialog box will appear.

Another way to access value field settings is the area where we drop fields for the pivot table.

You can go to the values area. Click on the small arrow head. As the last option, you will see Value Fields Settings.

You can also use the Pivot Table Analyze menu from Ribbon to access value field settings. It is the second option in the Pivot Table Analyze menu. Just make sure that you have a value field selected.

Now that you have accessed the value fields settings, you can modify the field using the available options. For our example, we needed the average of sales done by each region. So we change the summarize value fields by to Average. You can also change the name of the field here.

You can see one more tab here that is "Show Value As". Here you can choose to show value as percentage of total or difference between two columns, rank etc.

Accessing The Field Setting

The Field Settings allows you to modify the structure of the table. The Field settings can be accessed by right clicking on any row or column heading or subheading.

Another way is the dropping area of fields. Same as the value field settings, you can click on the little arrow head on  the rows, or columns section to open the field settings.

And another way to access the field settings is the pivot table analyze tab of ribbon, same as the value fields settings.

From field settings of pivot tables, you modify the subtotals of the pivot table, change the layout and print settings. You can choose to show items in tabular format or not, choose to repeat item labels or not. Choose to insert a blank line after each item label or not. Choose to show items with no data or not.

Hope this article about Formatting a Value Field in Pivot Tables in Microsoft excel is explanatory. Find more articles on calculating values and related Excel formulas here. If you liked our blogs, share it with your friends on Facebook. And also you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. We would love to hear from you, do let us know how we can improve, complement or innovate our work and make it better for you. Write to us at info@exceltip.com.

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