Google Docs Now Has Pivot Tables

Pivot Tables in Microsoft Excel are used to quickly create summarized calculations when a lot of data is involved. According to O’Reilly, “The Pivot Tables tool is one of the most powerful yet intimidating features in Excel. Pivot tables allow you to quickly summarize and analyze large amounts of data in lists and tables–independent of the original data layout in your spreadsheet–by dragging and dropping columns to different rows, columns, or summary positions.”

Now, Google Docs also has this feature. You can create a pivot table in Google Docs by going to Data -> Pivot Table Report after selecting the corresponding data.

Lets take the example below. It’s a data set with Student Name, Gender, Class Level etc in different columns. (The following template is available in the Google Docs templates gallery and you may use it to test the new Pivot tables feature in Google Docs.)

Using the Pivot Tables report, you can quickly group the above data by Gender, Class Level or any of the columns available.

Here’s the fun part – values and filtering. While grouping data isn’t difficult and can be achieved without using pivot tables, the main feature of this tool is the ability to quickly perform calculations in those groups. Like, you can quickly calculate the sum, average and similar calculations on any group in the table.

Want to filter the data based on certain parameters? You can do that too.

Once you are done, select Update Table and your changes should be implemented. And the good thing about Google Docs is that since you can collaborate in real-time with colleagues, this Pivot Tables feature also works in that mode. This certainly moves Google Docs one step closer to the formidable MS Office.