Following The Examples and Case Studies in Pivot Table Book

[TheExcelKid]

I just finished chapter 5 of the Pivot Table Data Crunching book. The layout of the book seems to imply that you should be able to work through the examples and case studies using the downloadable spreadsheet examples. With each passing chapter, I’m finding it more difficult to do so. The first thing I noticed was that in many cases you had to recreate your own pivot table with each book example, rather than using one that’s already provided. That’s OK, though in chapter four I was getting pivot tables whose summary data values looked very *close* to what was shown, though not exactly (which make me wonder if the raw data they were using was the same as I was). In chapter 5 though, for some of the examples and even the case study, you need to have date fields in your raw data that are not provided in sample data source. At this point, the book seems to have abandoned using a “hands-on approach”. I did create my own raw data to be able to create my own versions of what is being illustrated, however, without using the actual data that the author uses, I can’t be certain what I am doing is correct.

I guess my question in regards to the intent of these examples and case studies (at least up to chapter 5), is are they meant for you to simply follow along “visually”? If not, has there been material mistakenly left out of the downloadable workbooks?

Thanks for any suggestions or opinions!

The Kid

 

[MrExcel]

Something is wrong with the data downloads. You should be able to walk through everything step by step by step with identical results.

I am in California this week, without access to the office PC. I will resolve this when I get back to the office. Send me an e-mail with your e-mail and I will let you know when the right files are available for download.

Bill Jelen
bill @ mrexcel.com