What is the difference between a pivot table in Microsoft Excel and a table in Microsoft Word?
They are radically different. A table in Word, just displays
your data in a tabular form. A pivot table has a lot of
functionality, enabling you to do things like calculations, picking
different types of calculations, switching the table layout,
changing what pieces of the data that it is based on that you use.
Pivot tables are used to analyse data and simply manipulate the
results as you do so. Tables in Word can actually do simple
calculations, something many people don't even realise, but they
can't do the same kinds of things a pivot table can do. Pivot
tables are closer in their function to a Crosstab query in Access,
than to a table in Word.