Useful Tips
Top Tips for Choosing a Chart
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Here is an extract from an Excel spreadsheet:
It shows information for three retail outlets, with data about their turnover each month. The numerous styles of charts and graphs Excel provides enable you to present this data visually in various ways, each with a different emphasis. For example...
Column Charts are great for comparing values across categories. You can use a Column Chart to show you the performance of each retail outlet, as a different coloured column, like this:
Bar Charts are like Column Charts but display the information horizontally, rather than vertically, like this below:
Line Charts are used to display trends over time. If you record, on your spreadsheet, the values of your sales each month, you could create a Line Chart for the year. This will show you, at a glance, whether your turnover is going up or down, together with any peaks and troughs during the year. Here are some examples:
Pie Charts display the proportion of each category to the whole. If you record turnover in relation to each branch, a pie chart can show you what proportion of your turnover relates to each branch at a particular point in time:
Area Charts show both trends and proportions. They are a combination of a line chart and a pie chart. Using the example of our three retail outlets, an area chart can be used to show the proportion of each shop's turnover, compared to the whole, as well as identifying peaks and troughs over time. Here's an example:
