Creating a more versatile PivotTable with the List feature (Excel 2003/2007)

Excel's List feature, which allows you to segregate, manipulate, and quickly analyze your data, also helps you create a more efficient PivotTable. In previous versions of Excel, if you create a Pivot Table from a range of data, and later expand the range to include more rows, you also needed to re-create the PivotTable based on the new data range. However, if you make a range of data into a list before you create its PivotTable, the PivotTable refreshes to include new rows that you add to the list.

To do so, select the data you wish to include in the list and press [Ctrl]L. Then, click OK in the Create List dialog box. Now, to create a PivotTable that can expand as your list expands, select the list and choose Data | PivotTable And PivotChart Report from the menu bar. Click Finish in the PivotTable And PivotChart Wizard to accept Excel's default options. Now, if you add data to the list's insert row (the row with an asterisk), the list expands to include the new data. And, if you click the Refresh Data button on the PivotTable toolbar, the new row of data is integrated into the PivotTable.

Excel 2007 enhances 2003's List feature with Tables. Tables work similarly to 2003's lists. To create a table in 2007, select the data you want to include and press [Ctrl]T. A new Table Tools ribbon displays with one tab: the Design tab. In the Design tab, you can create a PivotTable from your table by clicking the Summarize With PivotTable button in the Tools group. Choose a location for your PivotTable and Excel builds the PivotTable from your 2007 table.