What You See Is What Gets Totaled

Totals are based on categories displayed in the table. If you choose to exclude some categories from a table, cases from those categories are not included in total calculations.

  1. Open the table builder (Analyze menu, Tables, Custom Tables).
  2. Right-click Age category on the canvas pane and choose Categories and Totals from the pop-up menu.
  3. Click the category labeled Less than 25 in the Label list.
  4. Click the arrow key to the left of the Exclude list.
  5. Click the category labeled 65 or older in the Label list.
  6. Click the arrow key to the left of the Exclude list again.

    The two categories are moved from the Display list to the Exclude list.

  7. Click Apply and then click OK in the table builder to create the table.
Figure 1. Total in table with excluded categories
Total in table with excluded categories

The total count in this table is only 2,107, compared to 2,828 when all of the categories are included. Only the categories that are used in the table are included in the total. (The percentage total is still 100% because all of the percentages are based on the total number of cases used in the table, not the total number of cases in the data file.)