How to “flatten” or “collapse” a 2D Excel table into 1D?

Question

I have a two dimensional table with countries and years in Excel. eg.

        1961        1962        1963        1964
USA      a           x            g           


        

Answer 1

For anyone who wants to use the PivotTable to do this and is following the below guide: http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php/tip/creating_a_database_table_from_a_summary_table/

If you want to do it in Excel 2007 or 2010 then you first need to enable the PivotTable Wizard.

To find the option you need to go to "Excel Options" via the Main Excel Window icon, and see the options selected in the "customize" section, then select "Commands Not in the Ribbon" from the "Choose Commands from:" dropdown and "PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard" needs to be added to the right.. see the image below.

Once that is done there should be a small pivottable wizard icon in the quickbar menu at the top of the Excel window, you can then follow the same process as shown in the link above.