1. Workshop 3: Charts

2. A picture is worth thousand words
Trying to draw information from numerical data takes time and is painful
We can use graphical representation to give quick overview of information

3. A picture is worth thousand words
Let’s take a look of our previous exercise for an instance.
IMPORTANT!!
Graphical representation is good for briefing / overview
It is not as precise as numerical data
Always use correct type to represent data
Use together with numerical data, if it is necessary
It needs to be clear and must NOT be fancy

4. Exercise
We’ll create a chart from air quality table from previous exercise
source:
Step 1: select all data including header
Step 2: click chart wizard icon
Step 3: Choose chart type  Line  click Next

5. Exercise
Step 4: Fill the chart title and axis  click Next  Finish

6. Fine tuning your chart
Some lines are too close to the axis due to their scale
These lines are useless since they cannot give any information
We need to enlarge them by adjusting vertical scale

7. Fine tuning your chart
Linear scale is not suitable for our chart since it compresses some data series
Let’s try log scale on vertical axis
Right click exactly on the vertical scale, then choose “Format Axis…”
Choose “Scale” tab in the Format Axis dialog, then check the Log scale box

8. Fine tuning your chart In the chart, we can change:
Line color and thickness
Chart background color
Legend types
Legend placement
Label alignment
Add trend lines
Add grid lines

9. - 4 < x < 4 Basic Scientific Plots cos(x) x*cos(x) sin(x) / x
Usually generated from a mathematical functions
Exercise: plot curves of the following functions on the same chart
sin(x)
cos(x)
x*cos(x)
sin(x) / x
- 4 < x < 4