If you want to try different layouts and adjust the source data you make available for your PivotTable list, Excel is an excellent design environment. You can access external data within Excel and create an Excel PivotTable report. From Excel, you save or publish a PivotTable report to a PivotTable list on a Web page. (A PivotTable report is the Excel version of a PivotTable list.) The source data you specified in Excel is automatically attached to the PivotTable list, and most Excel PivotTable report features are included when you publish.
You might want to format the PivotTable list and make adjustments to its size and appearance in another design program.
Microsoft FrontPageFrontPage is the recommended design program for modifying PivotTable lists saved or published from Excel. In FrontPage, you can create PivotTable lists on Web pages, modify PivotTable lists that were designed in other programs, and then use the features of FrontPage to construct and manage your Web site.
Access provides specialized features for creating Web pages that operate on and display data from Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server databases. For example, you can use the field list to locate data and drag it onto a PivotTable list. You can establish links between PivotTable lists and other controls that display and manipulate data from databases on a Web page.
If you need a more comprehensive programming environment than the scripting capabilities of Excel, FrontPage, and Access provide, you can design PivotTable lists in the Microsoft Visual Basic. Use Visual Basic when you want to include a PivotTable list in a custom solution. Users can view and interact with PivotTable lists on the Visual Basic forms in your programs. Instead of a browser, your form becomes the run-time environment, and your program can automate many PivotTable list features.
Note Microsoft Word is not a suitable design program for PivotTable lists.