Have an employee list (about 1700) (which I did not create) and just trying to separate US from UK. Opened a Pivot Table, first and last names in row, then their job description and location in columns and then I was going to filter US/UK.

First/last name ok but when I tried to drop the job description column in the column section - I got this message (which I have never seen before):

"The field you are dropping into the column area exceeds 256 items. Only the first 256 items will be displayed as columns. To include all of the field's data in your Pivot Table report, drop the field into a diifferent area, such as the data area"

(1) why did I get this message - the spreadsheet isn't that big
(2) where is the data area that it's referring to? - not familar with what it's talking about

any help will be appreciated
M