Technology & Engineering
Excel Charts
Excel charts are visual representations of data created within Microsoft Excel. They allow users to present data in various formats such as bar graphs, pie charts, and line graphs, making it easier to interpret and analyze information. Excel charts are customizable, allowing users to modify colors, labels, and other elements to effectively communicate their data.
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6 Key excerpts on "Excel Charts"
eBook - ePub- John Walkenbach(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Chapter 19: Getting Started Making Charts
In This Chapter
Charting overview How Excel handles charts Embedded charts versus chart sheets The parts of a chart Examples of each chart typeW hen most people think of Excel, they think of crunching rows and columns of numbers. But as you probably know already, Excel is no slouch when it comes to presenting data visually in the form of a chart. In fact, it’s a safe bet that Excel is the most commonly used software for creating charts.This chapter presents an introductory overview of the Excel program’s charting ability.What Is a Chart?
A chart is a visual representation of numeric values. Charts (also known as graphs ) have been an integral part of spreadsheets since the early days of Lotus 1-2-3. Charts generated by early spreadsheet products were quite crude but have improved significantly over the years. Excel provides you with the tools to create a wide variety of highly customizable charts.Excel 2007 charting is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that Excel 2007 charts have a great new look. The bad news is that Microsoft did not provide any new chart types or any significant new features.Displaying data in a well-conceived chart can make your numbers more understandable. Because a chart presents a picture, charts are particularly useful for summarizing a series of numbers and their interrelationships. Making a chart can often help you spot trends and patterns that may otherwise go unnoticed.Figure 19.1 shows a worksheet that contains a simple column chart that depicts a company’s sales volume by month. Viewing the chart makes it very apparent that sales were down in the summer months (June through August), but they increased steadily during the final four months of the year. You could, of course, arrive at this same conclusion simply by studying the numbers. But viewing the chart makes the point much more quickly.
eBook - ePub- John Walkenbach(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Part III: Creating Charts and GraphicsThe five chapters in this part deal with charts and graphics — including Sparkline graphics. You'll discover how to use Excel's graphics capabilities to display your data in a chart. In addition, you'll learn to use Excel's other drawing tools to enhance your worksheets.In This Part Chapter 19 Getting Started Making Charts Chapter 20 Learning Advanced Charting Chapter 21 Visualizing Data Using Conditional Formatting Chapter 22 Creating Sparkline Graphics Chapter 23 Enhancing Your Work with Pictures and Drawings
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Chapter 19: Getting Started Making Charts In This Chapter Charting overview Seeing how Excel handles charts Comparing embedded charts and chart sheets Identifying the parts of a chart Looking at examples of each chart typeW hen most people think of Excel, they think of crunching rows and columns of numbers. But as you probably know already, Excel is no slouch when it comes to presenting data visually in the form of charts. In fact, Excel is probably the most commonly used software in the world for creating charts.This chapter presents an introductory overview of Excel's charting ability. Chapter 20 continues with some more advanced techniques. What Is a Chart?A chart is a visual representation of numeric values. Charts (also known as graphs ) have been an integral part of spreadsheets since the early days of Lotus 1-2-3. Charts generated by early spreadsheet products were quite crude, but they've improved significantly over the years. Excel provides you with the tools to create a wide variety of highly customizable professional-quality charts.Displaying data in a well-conceived chart can make your numbers more understandable. Because a chart presents a picture, charts are particularly useful for summarizing a series of numbers and their interrelationships. Making a chart can often help you spot trends and patterns that may otherwise go unnoticed. If you're unfamiliar with the elements of a chart, see the sidebar later in this chapter, “The Parts of a Chart.”
eBook - PDF- A Thorne(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Macmillan(Publisher)
133 Module 20 Create and edit charts for different assignments and contexts Module 20 This module revises more skills in Excel you learned in Level 3. Think about it • What is the main advantage of seeing data represented in a chart? • Do some charts display certain data better than others? • What happens to a chart when the data in its original spreadsheet is changed? Unit 20.1: Creating column, line and pie charts Charts can be used to represent all kinds of data in a visual format, which makes it easier for us to interpret the information. Seeing the data displayed in this way also enables us to draw more conclusions from it. Keep in mind the difference between the plot area and the chart area: Axis title Axis title Chart title Data labels Chart area Plot area Original spreadsheet Category axis (horizontal axis; X axis) Value axis (vertical axis; Y axis) marked off in intervals Legend showing the colours used for the two data series Axis title Figure 20.2: Different chart elements Charts are created in the Chart group under the Insert tab: A B Figure 20.3: Charts group in (A) Excel 2007 and 2010; (B) Excel 2013 and 2016 Figure 20.1: Charts are found in many contexts, such as economic analyses, progress reports, financial statements and strategic planning 134 Module 20 20.1.1 Column charts A column chart compares one or more categories of data (e.g. prices of items; test results; average daytime temperatures) across a range of values in intervals (e.g. rand values; marks; months). Do the following to create a column chart: 1. Create a spreadsheet with the data. Adjust the columns as necessary, and format them (e.g. as percentages, or set the decimal places). 2. Select the data with the mouse cursor. 3. Under the Insert tab, in the Charts group, click the arrowhead next to the Insert Column Chart button (or the Insert Column or Bar Chart button in Excel 2016). 4. Click a 2D or 3D column chart icon (clustered, stacked or 100% stacked).
eBook - PDFComputer Practice N5 SB
TVET FIRST
- S Sasti, D Sasti(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Macmillan(Publisher)
This means decisions can be made faster. For example, managers can observe trends in sales of different products and easily identify best sellers and worst sellers. They can then take a decision on which product to keep or identify why a product is doing poorly in the market. The different types of charts There are many different types of charts that can be created in MS Excel for different purposes. We will look at the following in detail: • Column chart. • Pie chart. • Line chart. • Bar chart. 90 min 173 TVET FIRST Module 3: Spreadsheet applications – MS Excel 2016, 2019 and Microsoft 365 Column chart Column charts are used to compare items of data within a specific range of values. Figure 3.98: A column chart Pie chart Pie charts display items in one data series. This could be one row or one column of data. The data points in a pie chart are shown as a percentage of the whole pie. Figure 3.99: A pie chart Subtypes of column charts: • Clustered column. • Stacked column. • 100% stacked column. • 3-D clustered column. • 3-D stacked column. • 3-D 100% stacked column. • 3-D column. Subtypes of pie charts: • Pie. • 3-D pie. • Pie of pie. • Bar of pie. • Doughnut chart – this type of chart can contain more than one data series. Possible applications of column charts: • Comparing budgeted values with actual values. • Comparing sales over different months. Possible applications of using pie charts: • Analysing time spent on different activities. • Determining percentage of budget spent on different items. Line chart Line charts are used to show trends over a period of time. Figure 3.100: A line chart Bar chart Bar charts are used to compare items of data. Bar charts look like column charts rotated to the side (horizontal). Figure 3.101: A bar chart 174 Topic 1: Computing concepts and application skills TVET FIRST Subtypes of line charts: • Line. • Stacked line. • 100% stacked line. • Line with markers. • Stacked line with markers. • 100% stacked line with markers.
- Bernard Liengme(Author)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Newnes(Publisher)
Unfortunately, we cannot display the x-axis gridlines on this chart since the hidden bars will cause the gridlines to appear broken. 136 A Guide to Excel 2002 for Business and Management Summary We have seen the main types of charts that can be drawn in Microsoft Excel: bar, column, line, XY and pie. We have not looked at area, surface or 3D charts. The reader is encouraged to experiment with these. Excel also provides some specialized charts which are accessed at step 1 of the Chart Wizard by opening the Custom Types tab. A chart is composed of a number of objects such as: chart area, plot area, data series, x- and y-axes, gridlines, etc. Objects can be formatted to change their appearance. The quickest way to format an object is to right click on it and use Format in the pop-up menu. Some features (titles, for example) of a chart can be altered by using the Chart Option item in the pop-up menu when the chart area is right clicked. If some y-values are missing, entering the formula =NA() in the empty cells generally results in a better chart. The drawing tools can be used to annotate a chart. Data can be added to an existing chart using Copy followed by Paste Special. Titles and text boxes can be linked to cells using formulas in the form =[FileName.xls]Sheet1!$A$1. Microsoft Excel provides many formats for charts. Always aim for clarity when designing a chart. Just because you can make a bar chart with three-dimensional bars does not mean that this is necessarily the best choice. Does the third dimension mean anything? Does it make the chart more interesting or does it merely confuse the viewer? Very often the simplest design is the optimum one.
No longer available |Learn more- Michael Alexander, Dick Kusleika(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
FIGURE 18.41 A funnel chart visualizing the value in each stage of a sales pipeline FIGURE 18.42 Map charts are ideal for visualizing location-based data. Chapter 18: Getting Started with Excel Charts 439 18 Map charts are remarkably flexible, allowing you create a chart based on province names, county names, cities, and even ZIP codes. As long as Bing can recognize the values that you are using to identify geography, your chart will render seamlessly. Double-clicking the map will active the Format Data Series task pane (see Figure 18.43), exposing a handful of unique formatting options. These options allow you to change the pro-jection (flat or curved map), the area (show all locations or just those that have data), and the series color (apply color banding based on values). FIGURE 18.43 Map charts come with unique customization options. 441 CHAPTER 19 Using Advanced Charting Techniques IN THIS CHAPTER Understanding chart customization Changing basic chart elements Working with data series Discovering some chart-making tricks E xcel makes creating a basic chart easy. Select your data, choose a chart type, and you’re finished. You may take a few extra seconds and select one of the prebuilt chart styles and maybe even select one of the chart layouts. But if your goal is to create the most effective chart possible, you probably want to take advantage of the additional customization techniques available in Excel. Customizing a chart involves changing its appearance, as well as possibly adding new elements to it. These changes can be purely cosmetic (such as changing colors, modifying line widths, or adding a shadow) or quite substantial (say, changing the axis scales or adding a second value axis). Chart ele-ments that you might add include such features as a data table, a trend line, or error bars. The preceding chapter introduced charting in Excel and described how to create basic charts.
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