As I mention in my post on creating pivot charts, you can’t create pivot charts in Excel for the Mac. It’s, hands down, my greatest aggravation with Excel. Bar none. However, Excel for the Mac has an additional bug that renders any pivot chart created on a PC that includes a report filter utterly useless. You can see the options in the drop-down filter and even select them. In fact, the pivot table (that’s created with every pivot chart) updates. However, your pivot chart will not update. I demonstrate this disappointing failure in this short demo.
Test For Yourself
Don’t believe me, Excel for Mac users? Go ahead and test it for yourself with the pivot chart in this Excel file.
Learn More
If you want to learn more about data visualizations that don’t suck, check out my Annielytics Dashboard Course offerings.
Did they fix that on Excel 2013? Is it possible to create pivot charts on a Mac?
The latest version for the Mac is 2011. 2013 is PC only. According to a friend at Microsoft, they’re working on 2014 now.
i cant even manipulate the TABLE that was created in a PC (let alone CHARTS)
I’m using excel for mac 2007 … does the 2011 version allow me to manipulate tables at least?
They might have used a feature that causes Excel to implode on a Mac, like slicers. I would start over with a new pivot table.
I am trying to manipulate SDWIS data on drinking water from the EPA and keep getting this error on my mac:
“This PivotTable was created in a later version of Excel and can’t be updated in this version.To update it, click OK, and then open the workbook in the version of Excel it was originally created in.”
Am I just having trouble due to inexperience in Excel or am I facing an insurmountable mac compatibility issue? Is there anything I can do? This is the source of the data, if you’re interested.
http://water.epa.gov/scitech/datait/databases/drink/sdwisfed/pivottables.cfm
Gah. I answered this. Disqus ate my reply. Can you tell me more, like what version you’re working on and what version it was created in?
I made use of the pivot table and slicer feature on my excel workbook with my windows laptop and it works fine. But i am currently unable to view this file on mac system, could there be a format i could save the file on windows that will allow me to view all features on mac?
Thanks in anticipation,
Unfortunately, slicers won’t work on the Mac. This is a HUGE frustration of mine with Microsoft.
my pivot chart shows 1900 dates in one column and 1904 dates in another. totally schizophrenic. running xl/mac 2011. the chart is drawn from a single file. any suggestions?
That’s not a Mac issue. It sounds like there’s an issue with your data set.
Annie,
I can confirm the pivot chart bug on excel for mac 2011, this is my biggest frustration as well. Currently working with beta version of 2015 office for mac , and excel has the same bug !!!. Are they not planning to fix it ? I have feedback back this issue, but no answer yet.
Chris
Excel for Mac is an afterthought for Microsoft. It most likely always will be.
My workaround is to create the report first in Mac Excel. I create reports using the 2016 versions of Excel for Mac and Win. I use MS Access for my data, so I acquired ODBC drivers from Actual Technologies and created my reports using pivot tables, slicers and the “getpivot” formula. When I open my reports in Win Excel 2016 everything works, so for me the compatability issue is one way: Win to Mac. Win Excel 2016 seems to be more forgiving.
It’s crazy that Mac users have to do data acrobatics like this. It’s inexcusable, imo, that 2016 didn’t come with support for pivot charts. I’m without words.
Hi, I created a spreadsheet with a pivot table on my lenovo laptop. I sent it to someone who has a MAC, for some reason the pivot table won’t refresh when they make changes to the data on the file. I had to remotely control their screen to fix the pivot as we were pressed for time. What can I do to correct the issue?
I don’t know. I’ve never experienced this myself. But this is the most active community of Mac Excel users. I’d drop your question there: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac. Including a link to at least a sample file users can d/l always increases your chances of getting your question answered.