How to make formatting 'stick' in Excel pivot tables
The normal way of formatting cells in Excel doesn't work with pivot tables. To make the formatting 'stick' you have to use the formatting options from the special pivot table menus. David Carter explains how.
The normal way of formatting cells in Excel (highlight the area, then Format - Cells at the top of the screen) doesn't work for pivot tables. Or rather, it will work once, but as soon as you Refresh the data the formatting is likely to disappear.
To make the formatting 'stick' you need to highlight the cells via the pivot table's own menus.