11. Importing Files & Pivot Tables

Chapter 9 begins by Importing Data to Excel from several different types of files: a native Excel file, a Comma Delimited Text file, an Access Database file, a Word Document file, and from a Webpage. Excel can import lots of different file types including from XML maps & files, recent innovative file types.

Excel contains data filters to accommodate each different file type of import. These filters assist you in helping Excel to place the data so that when combining files into a spreadsheet, arts and crafts can be kept to a minimum, while you add the data.

A PivotTable does for Data what a Rubik's Cube does for fun - it lets you keep rearranging views of itself until you have just the way you want it to be!

We used the data that we imported to creat a PivotTable. We added and then kept changing the view of the data so we could see it in different ways. In addition, we filtered the PivotTable so we could limit what we saw to a smaller portion of the data. We used a PivotTable Autoformat to enhance the look of our work.

Then we created and formatted a PivotChart. We changed the location of the data in the Chart, and noticed that it changed in the Table. We change the location of the data in the Table and noticed that it changed in the Chart. There is a wonderful interactivity between these two elements.

Materials Covered:Excel Project 9 - Importing Data, Working with PivotCharts, PivotTables, and Trendlines, pp. 690-734

A break from Cases this week:
Assignment 9 - Shortcuts and Function Keys in Excel 2007: An Online Reference:

1. Click Here for a list of Keyboard Shortcuts and Functions Keys.
   
2. When you're done, in an entry in your journal:.

in your opinion, what are

• three most useful Shortcuts and Function Keys specific to Excel,
• and three most useful generic Windows Shortcuts? Thanks.