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Making Excel

Charts

Copyright (c) 2011 by The McGraw-H il l Companies. This mater ial is intended solely for

educational use by l icensed users ofLearningStats. I t may not be copied or r esold for prof it.

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Whats Your Data Type?

Your data type dictates theacceptable char t type.

Cross sectional data (x1, x2, , xn)

Numerical data: histogram, bar chart

Categorical data: bar, column, pie

Time series data (y1, y2, , yn): line chart, bar chart

Bivariate data (x1,y1), (x2,y2), , (xn,yn): scatter plot

Note: Only Excel charts are listed. Statistics packages

(e.g., SPSS, Minitab) offer more choices for statistical

data analysis. MegaStat (or similar Excel add-ins) will

enhance Excels basic charts and make them nicer.

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Chart Types

Here are the Excel charts you aremost l ikely to use in a statisti cs class.

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Chart Edit Tools

After you have created a char t, you can customizeit using theDesign, Layout, orFormat ribbon.

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Chart Types

To add a ti tle and axis labels, cli ck onthe chart and use theLayout ribbon).

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Line Chart: Data EntryStep 1. Enter the data.

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Select DataStep 2. Highl ight the data (not the heading).

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Select ChartStep 3. ClickInsert r ibbon and choose char t type and style.

These data are a time

series, so we might

choose a line chart.

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Axis Labels?Step 4. Right-cli ck on graph and chooseSelect Data.

This is an annual time

series, so we want to put

years on thex-axis.

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Select Axis LabelsStep 5. Enter x-axis label range after you clickEdit.

This is an annual time

series, so we want to put

years on thex-axis.

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Align Data with Axis Ticks?Step 6. Right-cli ck on x-axis and position labels.

Excel centers each data value in

the middle of the axis interval.Thats OK for a bar chart, but for

a line chart we want to align data

with axis ticks (see next page to

see the difference).

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Customize Chart

Before

After

Step 7. ClickLayout

ribbon and edit graph.

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Scatter PlotHighlight data (not headings) and clickInsert. Add

axis labels later by clicking theLayout ribbon.

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Pie Chart

Use a pie chart only when

data comprises parts of awhole (e.g., market shares

must sum to 100%). Does not

work well if there are more

than a few data values.

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Bar Chart

A bar chart may be

better than a piechart to compare

data magnitudes.

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Time Series Bar Chart

Or you can use a

bar chart to show atime series. But

always put time on

the x-axis.

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Bottom Line

Charts are important in business.

Excel charts are flexible.

But its defaults are rather plain.

Why not take control? Customize!