Chapter 6

Charting Your Data

People like to see information presented visually. Looking at data in graphical form lets readers—and spreadsheet viewers—quickly and vividly understand what's going on, in a way that hundreds or thousands of rows worth of data can't. Compare the two portrayals of test scores shown in Figure 6–1.

Figure 6–1. Two points of view

Same data, two different looks. The column chart (that's what shown in Figure 6–1, and once you learn a bit about how charts are constructed, you'll be able to fashion one in about 10 seconds) conveys a sense of proportion among the scores that the cells to its left can't.

Excel makes it easy to conjure charts that can embellish your worksheets in productive and appealing ways. Needless to say, the more you know about its wide inventory of charting options the better, but Excel's charting basics are simple and will enable you to make crisp, lucid presentations of your data—even if you don't get to the all the bells and whistles.