The “Field name is not valid” error is a common issue that occurs when creating or refreshing pivot tables in Excel. This error message indicates that one or more of the field names in your data source contains an invalid character or is misspelled.
Fortunately, there are several ways to fix this error and ensure that your pivot table functions correctly.
Here are some tips for fixing the “Field name is not valid” error in Excel pivot tables:
- Check for typos or spelling errors in your field names.
- Remove any special characters from your field names (e.g., @#$%^&*()_+=).
- Ensure that all of your field names have unique identifiers.
- Use valid field names that do not conflict with Excel’s reserved keywords (e.g., “Sheet”, “Range”, etc.).
- Refresh your pivot table after making any changes to your data source or field names.
Here’s an example of how to fix the “Field name is not valid” error in Excel pivot tables: Suppose we have the following data set:
| A | B |
|---|---|
| Name | Amount |
| Alice | 100 |
| Bob | 200 |
| Cathy | 150 |
If we try to create a pivot table using this data and include the “Name” field as a row label, we may encounter the “Field name is not valid” error. This is because “Name” is a reserved keyword in Excel and cannot be used as a field name. To fix this error, we can simply rename the “Name” field to something else (e.g., “Customer Name”) and refresh our pivot table.
