What is the difference between a pivot table in Microsoft Excel and a table in Microsoft Word?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

A Word table is mainly for plain data, usually text. An Excel table usually contains numbers and calculations. While a lot of people don't realise it, numeric calculations can be done in a Word table, though to a far limited extent compared to what can be done in Excel. Rarely are calculations done, as if someone does want to do calculations they would use Excel rather than Word. So Word tables are usually just used for laying out data in a structured manner and Excel tables are used for doing calculations.