Building a pivot table from CSV data
A pivot table summarises rows into groups. Pick the column to group by (rows), optionally a column whose values become new columns, one or more numeric value columns, and an aggregation: Sum, Count, Average, Min or Max. The result can be downloaded as CSV.
How to make an online pivot table
- Upload a CSV file or paste CSV text. The first row must hold the column names.
- Choose the column to group by under Rows (for example Region).
- Optionally choose a column under Columns to spread its values across the top (for example Month).
- Add a numeric column under Values and pick Sum, Count, Average, Min or Max.
- Check the result and download it as CSV.
A worked example
Starting from a sales export with columns Region, Month and Revenue:
| Region | Jan_Revenue | Feb_Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| North | 12,400 | 13,150 |
| South | 9,870 | 10,020 |
Reading the configuration
- Rows = Region → one output row per distinct region.
- Columns = Month → one output column per month, named month_valuefield (for example Jan_Revenue).
- Values = Revenue with Sum → each cell is the total revenue for that region and month.
- Leave Columns empty for a simple grouped summary (one total per region).
Choosing the aggregation
| Aggregation | Answers |
|---|---|
| Sum | How much in total? (revenue, quantity, hours) |
| Count | How many rows? (orders, tickets, sign-ups) |
| Average | What is typical? (order value, response time) |
| Min / Max | What are the extremes? (lowest price, longest delay) |
Tips
- Value columns must contain numbers; text such as "$1,200" with symbols or thousands separators is not parsed as a number, so clean it first.
- Blank or inconsistent group labels ("north" vs "North") create separate rows — run Fix Capitalization and Trim Whitespace first.
- For a quick chart of the result, paste the downloaded CSV into Create Charts.