how to delete pivot table

Delete Pivot Table in Excel

As you know, a pivot table is used to summarize the raw data into an informative table. And you can easily remove a pivot table by following the below simple steps; generally, the Pivot table has shown the error message-"we can't make this change for the selected cells because it will affect a pivot table" to protect the accidental deletion of data.

How to Delete Pivot Table From Excel?

Let us understand this with some practical examples.

Example #1 – Removing a Pivot table

Below are the steps used for deleting pivot table from excel –

If you get a " we can't make this change for the selected cells because it will affect a pivot table as shown in the below screenshot," then select the entire Pivot Table by pressing Ctrl + A, and then hit Delete again.
Pick a cell anywhere in the Pivot Table to show the Pivot Tools on the ribbon.

Click on the Select tab and select the Entire Pivot Table, then hit delete.

or select the clear all option under home the same tab >>Clear. (As shown in the below screenshot).

Raw Data:

Pivot Table Data:

Example #2 – Remove the Pivot Table by Keeping the Stored Data

In this example, we first create a backup for the pivot table data then remove the pivot table A pivot table is an Excel tool that allows you to extract data from large data sets contained within a worksheet into a preferred format, such as a dashboard or reports. It has the ability to summarize, sort, group, and reorganize data, as well as do other complex calculations on it. read more .

Copy the data from the pivot table and paste it as values to another location, as shown in the below figure.

Then follow the step of Removing a Pivot Table.

Example #3 – Removing the Entire Worksheet

You can delete the entire excel sheet that has the pivot table to remove a pivot table from an Excel workbook.

Select the sheet in which your pivot table is located, then right-click on the sheet name, then select delete sheet to delete the entire worksheet as shown in the below figure.

Things to Remember Here

Always make sure to take a backup of data before removing the pivot table.

You can download this How to Remove Pivot Table in Excel template here – Remove Pivot Table Excel Template