need some pivot table help

[Gary Keramidas]

haven't really used pivot tables and would like some help.

i have a worksheet with ingredients listed in column A.

in row 1, i have the months, jan-07, feb-07, etc.

i want to make a pivot table look exactly like this so the user can utilize the
dropdown for ingredients and get usage for whichever ones they choose.

i keep getting counts, which i don't want or the values some other unwanted
data.

can someone point me in the right direction?

doesn't even need to be coded, just how do i do it manually for starters.

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

Starting with your source data. You currently have something like this???
Ingredient Jan-07 Feb-07 Mar-07
Eggs 1 5
Milk 5
Flour 4

That is not an ideal layout for pivot table data. You would be far better
off with something like this...

Ingredient Date Amount
Eggs Jan-07 1
Milk Jan-07 5
Flour Feb-07 4
Eggs Mar-07 5

You can then pivot this by placing the ingredients in the filter section and
the dates in the top row. Put the amount in the data section and you should
be off to the races.

Because your current layout has blanks in it you will get counts by default
instead of sums. Additionally each time period is it's own dimension as
opposed to having a single date dimension with the individual dates as
members of that dimension.

 

[Gary Keramidas]

ok, thanks, i'll use another approach