Excel 2008 : Pivot Table Builder

Hi, Is it OK to pose questions about Excel 2011 here? I don't see a forum for that version, so I'll try it here.

I just moved up to 2011 from Excel X. While I can see the value of the new Builder interface, I would like to find a way to make it stay hidden when I don't need it. I have several pivot tables that I use in my daily work. I have no need to modify the tables at all, I just keep refreshing them to extract the data I need. However, that big Builder keeps opening up in the middle of my screen every time I go to a table. How do I make it stay in the corner of the screen and how do I make it stay hidden from one launch to the next?

Thanks

Originally Posted by MarvinP

I'd try to answer your question but I don't know what the "Builder" looks like. Can you attach a picture of it (screendump jpg) by clicking on "Go Advanced" and then the Paper Clip Icon above the advanced message area.

Hi Mark, Thanks for your quick response. The Builder is the dark gray semitransparent window that appears when creating a new pivot table. It's home to the available fields for the pivot table and allows you to assign fields to the pivot table's rows and columns. I don't know what "Go Advanced" is, but there should be two attachments to this post. The first shows the Builder itself. The second shows the PivotTable tab of the ribbon when a table is selected. Clicking Elements on the far right opens a menu from which I can choose Builder to show and hide the Builder. Does that clarify my question?

Originally Posted by MarvinP

On the PC version the builder appears when we click on Pivot Table Toos (Tab) and then an Options Sub Tab and in the group called "Show" is an Icon named "Field List". If we click on the Field List Icon it un-highlights it. After that, clicking on the Pivot Table does not display the Field List (which is your Builder).

Bottom line is you need to set the default of showing the Builder/Field List to off.

Thanks for your note, MarvinP. That's exactly what I'm asking how to do. I was hoping someone here would know.

Thanks for the response, MarvinP. I guess the Windows and Mac versions are different on this score. I'm not sure what "Show Group" is, but I imagine it corresponds to the View group on the Pivot Table tab of the Ribbon in the Mac version. I have tried clicking that icon. It does hide the Builder for that session, but if I close the file and reopen it, the Builder is back and it does not remember the last place I positioned it. I also posted this question on a Mactopia forum and got confirmation that this is the way Excel 2011 works for another user. It is quite annoying, but not enough to make me go back to Excel X.

Originally Posted by romperstomper

Just seen this thread - is your copy of Office 2011 up to date? I do not get the behaviour you describe - if I turn off the Builder, it stays off the next time I start Excel.

Thanks for your note. I am fully up to date. It is good to know that some people don't get this behavior. I tested this by creating a new user and found that the Builder stayed hidden through a restart. So, I guess this is another failure on Microsoft's part to deal gracefully with anything that is different from the perfectly stock setup. I just rebuilt my whole system to get rid of this sort of problem, of which there are many in Office 2011, so I don't think this is caused by corrupted preferences. I did manage to get rid of quite a few, but a some new ones have cropped up, including this Builder behavior.

I count the days until I can stop using Office all together.

Originally Posted by MarvinP

Hi Uniquark,
I heard somewhere that the best selling software on the Mac was Microsoft Office. I'm not sure that is true but look at:
http://www.top-mac-software.com/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/software
http://www.amazon.com/Macintosh-Soft...F8&node=229643
http://www.mac-software.us/Cheap-Bes..._Software.html
It does look like you have other options, See
http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/off...-apps-for-mac/

I wonder if the other spreadsheets have forums with free support?

I'm not surprised that Office is the best-selling software. Everybody needs what everybody else has. That does not make it the best or even particularly good software. I'm in the same boat. I have to use Office because my business is editing. I receive documents from clients and I have to be able to edit them. I have found no other software that can handle Word documents as well as Word can, which is not particularly good.

I would gladly forego the free support if that was all that was keeping me in Microsoft's products.

I don't dispute that having a standard format is useful. I'm able to make a living because of it. I also don't dispute that Office has some very nice features. My point is simply that there are also many, many problems with Office. It seems to me that Microsoft spends much to many of its resources on making new features and too few of its resources on fixing the problems that those new features add to the system.

There are so many problems with Office that I would happily forego the good features to be shed of the frustration of dealing with the the problems. The one "feature" I can't do without is the ability to work with my clients' documents. So, I continue to use Office, but I reserve the right to gripe along the way.

It used to be that Mac OS crashed regularly, so we were not surprised when Word crashed. Then Apple got their act together and created Mac OS X, which is much, much more stable. In fact, Office is the only software that crashes regularly and it crashes as frequently as it always has. It seems to crash more, but I suspect that is because the rest of the system is so stable that I have come to expect better.

The argument could be made that there is something about my system that causes Office to crash; I have two responses to that point. First, why is Office so much more sensitive to whatever is causing the crashes that it crashes multiple times in a day when other applications will run for months without crashing? Second, the crashing I have observed is over years of use, several versions of Office, several versions of the OS, the addition and removal of many other software components, and many clean installations of the entire operating system. The one consistent factor is that Office crashes.

As an aside, there is no reason to believe that we can't have a standard format and a wide range of features without all the problems. Consider, for example, TeX and LaTeX, a system that is about twice as old as Office, offers better features, and is as stable as any application on my system. I use LaTeX fairly regularly and like it very much. The only factor stopping me from using it exclusively is that there are relatively few users of LaTeX, so the call for editors who know LaTeX is limited.

Of course one feature of Office that is very helpful in my business is that the system is so complex and obscure that very few of the people using it really have a clue of how to do things with it. That gives me 20% to 30% of my income: My clients try to do what they want, get frustrated, and ask me for help.