


The chart’s Series formulas contain the original data, stored in arrays. If you have a pivot chart and you delete the underlying pivot table, the pivot chart remains.If you make changes to the chart using these buttons, those changes are also reflected in the pivot table. These controls allow you to filter the data that’s displayed in the pivot table (and pivot chart). The field buttons in a pivot chart contain the same controls as the pivot chart’s field headers.If you make structural or filtering changes to one, the other is also changed. A pivot table and a pivot chart are joined in a two-way link.

Keep in mind these points when using pivot charts: If you modify the pivot table, the pivot chart is also changed. Figure 35.27 shows the pivot chart after I changed the Date group to quarters. If you modify the underlying pivot table, the chart adjusts automatically to display the new summary data. The chart makes it easy to see an upward sales trend for the Western division, a downward trend for the Southern division, and relatively flat sales for the Eastern division. Excel creates the pivot chart shown in Figure 35.26. For this example, select a standard line chart and then click OK. Excel displays its Create Chart dialog box, from which you can choose a chart type. To create a pivot chart, select any cell in the pivot table and choose PivotTable Tools Options Tools PivotChart. The pivot table is certainly easier to interpret than the raw data, but the trends would be easier to spot in a chart. The Region field is in the Column Labels area. The Date field is in the Row Labels area, and the daily dates have been grouped into months. The first step is to create a pivot table to summarize the data. This data will be used to create a pivot chart. This workbook, named sales by region pivot chart.xlsx, is available on the companion CD-ROM. The Date field contains dates for the entire year (excluding weekends), the Region field contains the region name (Eastern, Southern, or Western), and the Sales field contains the sales amount.
