Have you ever opened an Excel file and felt a pang of unease? Rows upon rows of data, cryptic formulas sprawled across cells, and a tangle of manual formatting that seems one misstep away from chaos.

I once made money moonlighting as a VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 instructor before Steve Ballmer ever typed “=sum(Profits)” in an Excel 1.0 spreadsheet cell. And a friend and former colleague from my ...

Have you ever opened an Excel file and felt a pang of unease? Rows upon rows of data, cryptic formulas sprawled across cells, and a tangle of manual formatting that seems one misstep away from chaos.

Excel created pivot tables to improve upon its convoluted, weak reporting features (which are still available). The pivot table is actually a collection of tools that Excel uses to help you create ...