1. 2/17/2019
Charts and Graphs
William Klingelsmith
William Klingelsmith

2. Charts and Graphs
Excel has several powerful features to visualize your data in different forms of charts of graphs
Terminology
Data point: a single entity that is going to be graphed or charted.
A single statistic for a single employee
Data series: a collection of related data points.
A single statistic for all employees
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

3. Charts and Graphs
It is always important to think about what type of data you’re trying to plot before you begin construction of a chart or graph
Some chart types do not work for certain types of data
Pie charts work well for showing relationships
Bar/Column charts work well for discrete samples of data
Line charts work well for continuous data
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

4. Charts and Graphs
Let us first create a simple pie chart that shows us information about the employee’s genders
Select cell range A25:B26
Move to the insert tab
Choose Pie, and then 2D Pie Chart
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

5. Charts and Graphs
Our chart appears to be logically oriented, but it is missing a lot of helpful information
Labels
Chart label
Small chart
Data labels can be added to the individual pieces of the pie by right-clicking on the pie graphic and choosing Add Labels. These labels can be further modified by right clicking on them again.
All chart labels can be added/removed through the layout tab.
We can move the chart to its own sheet by right clicking and choosing Move Chart.
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

6. Charts and Graphs Let’s create a column chart next.
We wish to plot current salaries by each employee
A3:A14 and E3:E14 is the cell range we wish to use
Insert->2D Clustered Column Chart
Move chart to a new sheet and add appropriate labels
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

7. Charts and Graphs
Let’s say we made an error in our last chart. We should have plotted both current salary and previous salary
We need to modify our existing chart to change this.
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

8. Charts and Graphs
Right click in the whitespace on your column chart and choose Select Data.
Inspect the existing series
Create a new series using the data in the Previous Salary column (F4:F14)
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

9. Charts and Graphs
Let’s now plot the average employee salary over a 12 year period.
Switch to the Average Employee Salary sheet
Select cell range A1:B14
Insert->2D Line Chart
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith

10. Charts and Graphs Fix the Series through the Select Data dialog
Remove the Year series
Redefine the Horizontal axis to display years
Respecify the Y-Axis and make the minimum $50,000
2/17/2019
William Klingelsmith