creating pivot table like Excel

Sorry but Numbers has no similar function like pivot tables. Nor does Numbers support writing Macros.

I am very new to Apple. I have been told that if you want more power than Numbers has to purchase Excel for the Mac. Now, if you are a student or an officer in a non-profit, you can purchase MS Office of PC or Mac at a very reduced price. I recommend that you investigate purchasing MS Office.

I don't think Apple announces their mid to long term plans for software upgrades but if they haven't added such a powerful feature as pivot tables to-date I would not hold my breath.

Hope this helps.

If you need pivot tables, purchasing Microsoft Office for Mac 2016 is probably your best option. If you don't want to do that, LibreOffice is another option. It is free and has more features than Numbers and is more like Excel than Numbers. It can be downloaded from https://www.libreoffice.org

I haven't personally used the pivot table functionality in LibreOffice but the following information from their support site may be of help: https://help.libreoffice.org/Calc/Pivot_Table

No spreadsheet app can compete with Excel on Pivot Tables! If you are constantly creating them as part of heavy duty data analysis, use Excel.

However, it is quite easy to use COUNTIFS and SUMIFS to emulate in Numbers a "crosstab" view similar to what an Excel Pivot Table gives you. That formula approach does not give you the ability to simply use drag-and-drop to "pivot" to another view. But it can be very useful in most situations, providing the functional equivalent of an Excel Pivot Table.

The process CAN be automated using AppleScript, the rough equivalent of Excel's VBA macros. Numbers IS scriptable.

What kind of Pivot Table report do you typically need to do? Can you give an example?

SG