17.3. Practical ChartingFigure 17-1 showed you how to chart a list that contains two columns you want to graphone with text labels and one with numeric data. But, in real life, you'll probably need to deal with many different types of data that occupy many different configurations on your worksheet. Consider all the possible variations on the simple sales chart shown in Figure 17-1. You may need to compare the sales figures but, rather than showing region-to-region comparisons, you want to show how well (or poorly) each of your firm's products sold. Or perhaps you want to chart the quarterly performance of different stores over a five-year period, or determine the relationship between sales and profitability. All these charts require a slightly different arrangement of data. In the next section, you'll get a quick introduction to all these possibilities, using just the simple column chart and line chart. 17.3.1. Charts with Multiple Series of NumbersA series is the sequence of numbers that you plot on a graph. In the simple chart example (Figure 17-1), there's one series of numbers, which represents the sales figures for a company's different regions . Of course, a real chart usually adds extra layers of detail. You may want to compare the sales figures from several different years . In this case, you'd add a separate column to your worksheet data for each year. Then you'd add each column to your chart as a separate series. It doesn't take any extra expertise to create a chart that uses multiple seriesyou just select the right range of cells and pick a chart option from the ribbon, just as you would for a chart that has a single series. Different types of charts handle multiple series in different ways. The clustered column chart creates a separate bar for each value in a row, as shown in Figure 17-8. A line chart, on the other hand, shows a separate line for each series (as demonstrated in the next section). For more possibilities, take a look at the "Chart Types" section in Section 17.4.1. Tip: You can add multiple series to an existing chart without starting over from scratch. First, select the chart so that the linked data becomes highlighted. Then, click the rightmost edge, and drag it to the right to expand the range so that it includes the new columns (which, of course, you've already added to your worksheet). 17.3.2. Controlling the Data Excel Plots on the X-AxisExcel's charting tool has a dirty little secret. You may not realize it right away, but sooner or later, whether it's your first chart or your fortieth, you'll stumble onto the fact that Excel makes a fairly important decision for you about what data shows up in your chart's X-axis. Unfortunately, this decision may not be what you want. Fortunately, you can change it.
But what causes the situation in the first place? Excel creates your charts according to the way the data's organized in your worksheet. A simple example shows you the effect. The worksheet in Figure 17-9 looks at sales based on two factors: the year when the sales were recorded, and the region where the sales were made. In technical charting terms, the regions form the category axis , while the sales figures form the value axis . In other words, Excel creates a separate series for each year. But it makes just as much sense to organize the table in a different way, by making the year the category axis and creating a separate series for each region! Figure 17-9 contrasts these two different ways of looking at the same data, and shows how they affect the way Excel groups your data in a column chart.
The column chart example is fairly innocent. Although you may prefer one way of looking at the data over the other, they're relatively similar. However, most Excel charts aren't as forgiving . The line chart's a classic example. In a line chart, each line represents a different series. If you list the sales years on the category axis (as shown on the left side of Figure 17-10), you end up with a separate line for each region that shows how the region has performed over time. But if you invert the table (shown on the right side), you end up with a chart that doesn't make much sense at all: a series of lines that connect different regions in each year. Figure 17-10 illustrates the problem. Clearly, when you create a line chart, you need to make sure the chart ends up using the data in a way that makes the most sense. So, how does Excel decide how to plot the data? Essentially, Excel makes a best guess about your data. If you have more rows than columns, Excel assumes that the first column represents the category axis. If you have more columns than rows (or if you have the same number of rows and columns), Excel assumes that the first row represents the category axis, as in Figure 17-10.
Fortunately, you have the power to override Excel's choice if you need to. Just select your chart, and then choose Chart Tools Design
17.3.3. Data That Uses a Date or Time ScaleAs the previous example demonstrates , using time or date values for the category axis makes a lot of sense for charting progress or spotting long- term trends. However, the example does cheat a little. Even though any sentient human knows that the labels Sales-03, Sales-04, and Sales-05 represent consecutive years, Excel is oblivious to what these labels actually mean. You could chart a bunch of years that are far from sequential (like Sales02, Sales04, and Sales08) and Excel would obediently (and misleadingly) place each value on the category axis, spaced out evenly. This snafu doesn't present a problem in the previous example, but it's an issue if you need to chart years that aren't spread out evenly. Fortunately, Excel offers an easy solution. Instead of entering text labels, you can enter actual dates or times. Because Excel stores dates and times as numbers, it can scale the chart accordingly (this process is sometimes called category axis scaling ). Best of all, Excel automatically notices when you're using real dates, and kicks into action, making the appropriate adjustments, as shown in Figure 17-11.
What's happening in Figure 17-11 is worth examining in a bit of detail. The pictured worksheet shows two charts that illustrate the exact same data: a series of monthly sales figures from two regions (covering the time period between January 2007 and December 2008). The diamonds and triangles on the line charts indicate the data points for which sales data is available. The twist is that a big chunk of data (the months between August 2007 and June 2008) is missing. To make sure Excel handles this omission correctly, you must enter real date values (rather than text labels) for the category axis. If you take that step, the chart Excel creates automatically uses a continuous timescale , as shown in the top chart. (As you can see by looking at the data points, no values fall in the middle of the series.) On the other hand, if you enter the labels as text (as was done when creating the bottom chart), you'll see an incorrect result: The data from August 2007 and June 2008 are placed close togethereven though they record months that are almost a year apart. Optionally, you have the ability to tell Excel to disregard any values you've used in your column or row labels, thereby spacing the dates out evenly, as though they're ordinary text labels. That's how the incorrect chart in Figure 17-11 was created. (Why you'd want to do it is another question, but someone, somewhere, is probably in desperate need of this feature.) To change how Excel scales the category axis, select the chart, and then choose Chart Tools Layout
Category axis scaling works with more than just dates. You can scale any category axis values, as long as they're numeric, which is particularly useful if you're trying to determine the relationship between two different values. If you wanted to determine the relationship between students' IQs and their test scores, you could use the numeric IQ for the category axis, and use the test scores for the value axis. If you want to create a chart like this that compares two sets of numbers, you must use a scatter chart instead of a line chart. Scatter charts look similar to line charts and are covered in more detail later in this chapter (Section 17.4.6). 17.3.4. Non-Contiguous Chart RangesSo far, all the chart examples have assumed the data you want to chart is placed in a single, tightly packed table. But what if your information is actually scattered across your worksheet? This scenario may seem unlikely , but it actually occurs quite often when you need to chart only part of the data in a table. Say you want to create a chart using two or three columns, and these columns aren't next to each other. In this case, you need to take a few extra steps when you create your chart. Imagine you have a table that records the monthly sales of 10 different regional offices. However, you want to create a chart that compares only two of these offices. Your chart will use the category information in column A (which contains the month in which the sales were recorded), along with the values in column C and column D (which contain the total amount of sales for the two regions in which you're interested). The easiest way to create this chart is to start by selecting the non-contiguous range that contains your data. This technique is described in detail in Chapter 3 (Section 3.1.2). Here's what you need to do:
This approach works most of the time. However, if you have trouble, or if the columns you want to select are spaced really far apart, then you can explicitly configure the range of cells for any chart. To do so, follow these steps:
To add a new series, click Add, and then specify the appropriate cell references for the series name and the series values. You can also click Switch Row/Column to change the data Excel uses as the category axis (Section 17.3.2) and you can adjust some more advanced settings, like the way Excel deals with blank values, and the order in which it plots series (as explained in the following sections). 17.3.5. Changing the Order of Your Data SeriesIf your table has more than one series, Excel charts it in the order it appears on your worksheet (from left to right if your series are arranged in columns, or from top to bottom if they're arranged in rows). In a basic line chart, it doesn't matter which series Excel charts firstthe end result is still the same. But in some charts, it does make a difference. One example is a stacked chart (Figure 17-20), in which Excel plots each new series on top of the previous one. Another example is a 3-D chart, where Excel plots each data series behind the previous one. You can easily change your data series' order. Select your chart, and then choose Chart Tools Design 17.3.6. Changing the Way Excel Plots Blank ValuesWhen Excel creates a chart, its standard operating procedure is to ignore all empty cells. The value of 0 doesn't count as an empty cell and neither does text (Excel plots any cells that contains text as a 0). So what's the difference between an ignored cell and a cell that contains the number 0? In some types of charts, there's no difference. In a bar or pie chart, the result is the sameyou don't see a bar or a pie slice for that data. However, in some charts, there is a difference. In a line chart a 0 value is plotted on the chart, but an empty cell causes a break in the line. In other words, the line stops just before the missing data, and then starts at the next point. This broken line indicates missing information. If you don't like this behavior (perhaps because your empty cells really do represent 0 values), you can change it. Select your chart, and then choose Chart Tools Design
You can also switch on or off the "Show data in hidden rows and columns" setting to tell Excel whether it should include cells that are hidden when creating a chart. This setting determines how Excel deals with data when you use filtering in a table, or when you explicitly hide rows or columns using the Home |