A pivot table is a merely a summary of data in a format that you can manipulate to suit your needs.  Almost any array of data can be used to create a pivot table, given some simple rules:

• The column labels must be in the first row, and have distinct names
• The data must be in a list format
• There should be no blank rows
• Don’t include subtotals when selecting the data

Note: You can follow along with the how-to by clicking on the following Excel file link: Pivot Table Creation.xls

The pivot table starts with the data in a list format:

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