Obsolete items in pivot table list

GeoffDS picture GeoffDS · Aug 25, 2011 · Viewed 38.3k times · Source

In a pivot table of mine, when I go to filter the data using the Row Label, where it shows the checkbox list where you can select one or many or all items to be included, this list includes items that no longer exist. Or alternatively, if you go to the PivotTable Field List and select the field and try to filter there, the same thing shows up.

That is, I used to have a certain item in that column in my Excel spreadsheet (the source for the pivot table) and a month ago I stopped using that certain item, so it no longer appears at all in the data source. But, it still shows up in the checkbox list for the Row Label in the pivot table. How can I remove these? Refreshing the pivot table does not fix this. There are already a lot of different boxes and this just makes it harder to read.

Thanks for any help

Answer

AlejandroR picture AlejandroR · Jul 31, 2012

Taken from http://www.contextures.com/xlPivot04.html

Clear Old Items from a Pivot Table in Excel 2007

  1. Right-click a cell in the pivot table
  2. Click on PivotTable options
  3. Click on the Data tab
  4. In the Retain Items section, select None from the drop down list
  5. Click OK, then refresh the pivot table