While flipping through a magazine on the weekend, I saw this pizza pie chart. Yes, the pizza looks delicious, but the toppings are split down the middle. That makes the vote appear to be 50-50, not 58-42. Fun idea, but bad pizza pie chart!
Category: Excel charts
How to Make a Pie Chart in Excel
Sometimes, you need to make a pie chart in Excel. No, it might not be the best way to present your data, but sometimes you have to go with the chart type that someone else chooses.
Create an Excel Line Chart with Target Range
With an Excel line chart, you can show the sales results from a date range, to see how things have gone. For example, in the chart shown below, you can see the sales quantities for the first six months of the year. To add context to those numbers, you can create an Excel line chart with target range.
Continue reading “Create an Excel Line Chart with Target Range”
Create a Simple Box Plot in Excel
A box plot (box and whisker chart) lets you show how numbers are distributed in a set of data. Excel doesn’t have a built-in chart type for a box plot, but you can create a simple box plot in Excel, using a stacked column chart, and error bars.
Click to Show or Hide Excel Chart Data
If you’re building Excel reports for other people to use, you can add a few interactive chart features, to let people customize the reports.
In this example, there is a check box beside each region name, in the sales summary table.
Scroll Bar Changes Excel Chart Title
Last week, I shared a tip for using a scroll bar to change the date range in a report. The scroll bar selects the end date for the report, and the columns to the left show the two previous months.
It works very nicely, without programming, and makes it easy to view a different date range.
Link Chart Title to Worksheet Cell
This week, we’ll add a chart that shows the data for the selected date range. Then, we’ll change the worksheet heading to a formula, so it shows the selected dates. Finally, we’ll link the chart title to the heading cells, so it also shows the selected dates.
Oops! You’ll notice that I forgot to change Axis Title, that was added at the left side of the chart. If you use one of the Quick Layout options for charts, watch for those little extras that they might add.
You can see the steps in the video, at the end of this post.
Another Chart Title Example
You can see another example of linking a chart title to a worksheet cell in my post on pivot table report filters.
Instead of a simple link, you can use the IF function to affect the result, as in the formula shown below.
Watch the Chart Title Video
To see the steps for creating the chart, and adding the dynamic title, you can watch this short video tutorial.
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Show Excel Sparklines for Hidden Data
Do you use the sparklines that were introduced in Excel 2010? Last week, I was building a dashboard, and wanted to show sparklines for expenses and revenue.
Compare Word Counts in Excel Chart
It’s week two in the free online Infographics and data visualization course, led by Alberto Cairo, and I’m working on this week’s assignment.
The discussion this week is about a New York Times graphic that shows the number of times that words were used at national conventions.
Create Excel Line Column Chart on 2 Axes
When you create a chart in Excel 2010, you can select one of the chart types on the Ribbon’s Insert tab. Microsoft Excel won’t let you select two chart types at the same time though.
Excel Dot Plot Chart for Stock Prices
Today we’ll create an in-cell chart that shows the latest price for a stock, compared to its low and high prices. There is a sample file available for download, and a video that shows the steps.