bar chart | Excel & VBA

Change in Position – Which Chart Should I Use?

As an analyst, I often need to keep track of the change in position of various players in the industry. More often than not, the position change needs to be tracked between two specific points in time - say quarter 1 vs. quarter 2 or perhaps year 1 vs. year 2. In this article we take a look at a few alternative approaches to plotting position changes and find out which one serves us best. ...

Butterfly Chart – Excel Chart with Dual Converging Scales

Posted on 01 October 2009

A Butterfly chart is a chart where two entities are compared side by side using scales meeting at the center. Due to its shape, the chart resembles a butterfly and hence the name. These charts are sometimes also known as Funnel or Tornado Charts though I find "butterfly" to be a better description as it allows for a greater variation in shape than a funnel or a tornado does ! So let's jump ...

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Bar Chart with an Average Line for Each Group in Chart

Posted on 04 September 2009

In our previous article we covered adding an average line to a bar chart. At times, however, it may be useful to show an average line for each period or group when the chart consists of more than one such period or group. The advantage here is apparent - not only can the reader view the data points individually, he/she is also able to build a map of how various groups are placed with in relation to each other....

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Bar Chart with Average Line

Posted on 24 August 2009

A Bar Chart is used to represent data using horizontal bars. One way in which you can augment a bar chart is to add an average line. Create a bar chart Create a bar chart in Excel using any particular data set at your disposal. In our case, we took the Forbes list of the richest people on earth (2009 figures). Here's how the data looks like. To create a bar chart, select ...

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How to Choose a Chart

Posted on 03 July 2009

How to choose a chart? Which chart would best fit the data set that I have? How do I choose the better chart type from Excel? Finding the right type of chart for the data set that you have can be a bit of a challenge. Given a set of seemingly equivalent alternatives, picking one chart over the other can turn out to be quite an interesting exercise. The chart chooser diagram can help you make a choice in situations ...

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Excel Chart Types – Basic

Posted on 31 August 2008

These are some basic chart types in Excel. You can play around with these by downloading the file here. Stephen Few, Data visualization Guru and author, mentions a few rules for creating charts on his website PerceptualEdge. Some good reads are: Practical rules for using colors in charts Godin’s Silly Rules for Great Graphs Stephan has, over the years, written on many facets of presenting data ...

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