Pivot table
An Excel feature that summarizes a large table by grouping and aggregating it, letting you reshape rows, columns, and totals without formulas.
A pivot table turns a long, detailed table into a summary you can rearrange interactively. You drag fields into rows, columns, and values, and Excel groups the data and computes aggregates, sums, counts, averages, on the fly. It is the fastest way to answer questions like 'total sales by region by month' without writing a single formula.
Pivot tables are read-only summaries built from a source range, so they don't change the underlying data. When comparing workbooks, it's worth remembering that two files can have identical source data but differently configured pivots, or stale pivots that haven't been refreshed, so differences you see in a pivot may reflect its configuration rather than the data itself.