Displaying Category Values

There's only one small problem with the preceding table--it may be hard to interpret the mean value without knowing the underlying category values on which it is based. Is a mean of 2.34 somewhere between A great deal and Only some--or is it somewhere between Only some and Hardly any?

Although we can't address this problem directly in Custom Tables, we can address it in a more general way.

1. From the menus, choose:

   Edit > Options...

2. In the Options dialog box, click the Output Labels tab.
3. In the Pivot Table Labeling group, select Values and Labels from the Variable values in labels shown as drop-down list.
4. Click OK to save this setting.
5. Open the table builder (Analyze menu, Tables, Custom Tables) and click OK to create the table again.

   

   The category values make it clear that a mean of 2.34 is somewhere between Only some and Hardly any. Displaying the category values in the table makes it much easier to interpret the value of custom total summary statistics, such as the mean.

   This display setting is a global setting that affects all pivot table output from all procedures and persists across sessions until you change it. To change the setting back to display only value labels:

6. From the menus, choose:

   Edit > Options...

7. In the Options dialog box, click the Output Labels tab.
8. In the Pivot Table Labeling group, select Labels from the Variable values in labels shown as drop-down list.
9. Click OK to save this setting.