Bar Graph with Helper Stacked Bars

Posted on 10 December 2009

Always wanted to make a stacked bar graph but were afraid connoisseurs would smirk. Let me present - the stacked bar graph with helper bars - the latest addition to the charting fraternity. (Drum rolls) In case you were wondering how this one got made, here are the steps: Set Up the Data for the Bar Graph In this example, we pick up ... Continue Reading

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Pareto Chart Table - A More Meaningful Analysis (Download & Template)

Posted on 09 December 2009

Pareto charts are one of the basic pillars of the six sigma methodology and are typically used to depict the frequency of occurrence of issues that affect 'production'. Although one usually sees them being used as standalones, the humble pareto chart can very well be augmented in order to make it a much more meaningful tool for tracking and resolving pending issues & errors. Let's look at one such approach that utilizes a combination of a horizontal pareto chart ... Continue Reading

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Keyboard Shortcuts in Excel to Sort, Add, Hide Pivot Table Items and Fields

Posted on 03 December 2009

Here are some quick keyboard shortcuts in Excel to help you survive in the pivot table jungle. Keyboard shortcut to Sort Fields and Items in a Pivot Table Thought that you would have to drag the field or the item across the pivot table using the mouse. Hold on - you can use the keyboard too. Simply type the field or the item ... Continue Reading

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Timeline Chart in Excel with Interactive Event Descriptions (Download & Template)

Posted on 01 December 2009

A timeline chart allows the reader to understand the chain of events as they take place over a period of time. The events are typically represented as markers along a horizontal or a vertical line. In our previous post on adding interactive labels to chart, we saw how to fit a large number of event descriptions in a single chart. Today we look at a similar approach in order to ... Continue Reading

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Remove Background Tool in Office - Results from the Test Drive

Posted on 27 November 2009

The remove background tool is one of the new features introduced in Office 2010. Ever since I downloaded the public beta, I've been itching to take it for a test drive and this weekend, I did just that. I tried my hands at two images - one with high and the other with low contrast. So let's look at the results Remove Background from a High Contrast Image We picked up an ... Continue Reading

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Excel 2010 vs Excel 2007 : Basic Performance Test

Posted on 24 November 2009

My first impression of Excel 2010 was that it 'felt' faster than Excel 2007. So one of the first things that I did was to take it for a test ride. Now, I must admit, testing isn't my forte. A long long time back when I was a developer, I used to write horrible code. I had a fancy for declaring variables like i1, i11, i111 (and so on and so forth) and seldom wrote comments that could explain ... Continue Reading

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