In English please!!
Asked by Audra Bonacki:

What on earth does this even mean?

Oops, it seems that you need to place a table or a macro generating a table within the Table Filter macro.


Answers:
author: Audra Bonacki
body: Its still not working. I'm trying to add pie charts, nothing is working and I keep getting the same error even though it appears I have the table macro installed. And when I click to create a pivot table, my whole spreadsheet disappears!

comments: author: Marcus Reese
body: "when I click to create a pivot table, my whole spreadsheet disappears!"

This just happened to me, and I got here looking for the bug report so I could upvote it. I'll continue looking, but I just want to say that when Confluence lets me instantly mess up a page that is being watched by potentially hundreds of people in my company, it makes me not want to use Confluence.


author: Andrey Khaneev _StiltSoft_
body: Hello Marcus,

Please, watch the [first two gifs here](https://docs.stiltsoft.com/display/TFAC/How+to+use+Pivot+Table+macro).


author: Marcus Reese
body: Thanks. I watched them. The first confirmed the instant edit behavior, which I consider to be a bug. I submitted a bug report to Atlassian.


author: Andrey Khaneev _StiltSoft_
body: I'd say it is a design, not a bug: it hides the source table by default and there is an option to show the source table.


author: Andrey Khaneev _StiltSoft_
body: Here are [video tutorials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGIijnaL9mU&list=PLRpx9wuFqlzGZOZCj2PkQI2T4Bhkg3cVl) that should help you.


author: Victor Mutambuki
body: Audra,

I got the same error and I think i found a solution.

Once you've created the table and copied it in the Advanced tables - Table Plus, click anywhere in your table and then click on the **++filter table data++**as shown in the image. That should resolve the issue.

Victor

![Screen Shot 2019-05-03 at 1.23.38 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/53481iFB502B20E6E9C914/image-dimensions/502x105?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2019-05-03 at 1.23.38 PM.png")


author: Andrey Khaneev _StiltSoft_
body: Here are some [basic tutorial videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDPf_IxPiFs&list=PLRpx9wuFqlzFa9X4DWwQEBdy22YIwT6kh&index=1) that might help you to start using Table Filter macro.

comments: author: Audra Bonacki
body: Thank you Andrey, seeing it in action is much more helpful. I was trying to find some myself.


author: Andrey Khaneev _StiltSoft_
body: You are welcome, Audra! Also there are some [advanced examples](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGIijnaL9mU&list=PLRpx9wuFqlzGZOZCj2PkQI2T4Bhkg3cVl).

And you can contact [StiltSoft](https://stiltsoft.customercase.com/forums/support-requests/ideas/create?category=Table%2BFilter%2Band%2BCharts%2Bfor%2BConfluence) support in case you need confidential assistance.


author: Jonathan Smith
body: You can't edit the table filter macro fully until you put a table within it.

Insert the table filter macro on the page, click within the table filter macro and add a table, then edit the table filter macro's properties to define your filter choices.

If you have a working table + table filter macro on another page, edit that page and see how that one is set up.

comments: author: Audra Bonacki
body: you mean this thing? ![Capture.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/18891i36B2A7CE3A9E6548/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Capture.PNG")


author: Jonathan Smith
body: The error you got above will display when you first add the macro on the page, **this is OK.**Follow these steps to finish the setup:

1. Edit your page
2. Add the table filter macro
3. Click insert
4. Create a table **within** the Table Filter
5. ![2018-04-06_9-07-04.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/18894iCEE7395BB2C71E4F/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2018-04-06_9-07-04.jpg")
6. Click the word "table filter" on the gray bar, and then click edit
7. Click the 'Dropdown filter columns' and choose the columns you want to be able to filter.
8. Click Save
9. Publish your page.


author: Jonathan Smith
body: Yes, the picture you posted is a working table filter. Looks like you can filter on various columns. Follow the steps I posted above to create your own.


author: Kian Stack Mumo Systems
body: Hey Audra,   

The table filter and charts plugin is designed to perform filtering/operations on Confluence tables. This error means that the macro is expecting a table to perform operations on and you haven't provided one for it.   

More information on how use it may be found [here](https://docs.stiltsoft.com/display/public/TableFilter/How+to+use+Table+filter+macro).


author: Kurt Klinner
body: Hi Audra

based on the message i would assume that you use the Table filter macro on your page - right?

If yes than you need to put either a table or an macro that creates an table as an output

within the surrounding table filter macro

so as pseudo code

```
<table filter macro>

? ? ? <table>?

? ? ? ? ?....

? ? ? </table>

</table filter macro>
```

BR

Kurt