A large number of Excel charts also have their 3D version. Although in most cases this is just unnecessary embellishment, making it difficult to draw conclusions, sometimes 3D charts really do make sense. In the text that follows, you will find out how to make this type of chart, as well as how you can change the perspective of looking at the data…
Bullet is a type of Column or Bar chart where we display series one above the other, and later in their display settings we determine the way the series overlap. This is a simple chart that is suitable for comparing one larger and one smaller size, e.g. Budget and Actual sales values. How to create this type of chart you will find out in the following “recipe”…
“Actually an ordinary story, like Cinderella”… these are the words of an old hit from the ’80s, and they came to my mind as an illustration of what I want to describe in this text: a comparison chart of budgeted vs actual. If we use the display of data on the secondary axis, we can easily compare planned and realized values, which can be important for displaying intuitive reports.
When we make charts in most cases we’ll use text labels, numbers, dates, percentages etc. to display categories on the x axis. Sometimes descriptions are too long, so we have to work in different ways to display them in an adequate manner. Could we use something that describes them more closely such as a currency symbol, an envelope, a smiley face? In this “recipe” you will learn how to add different symbols to a table or chart.
Do you like Visio? It is an application that essentially belongs to the Microsoft Office, but is purchased separately. I used it to draw diagrams, but the number of objects it offers indicates that it is applicable in many activities where some type of design is performed. Recently, there is an add-on that allows you to easily create Visio diagrams within an Excel document. It’s called Data Visualizer. Let’s see how it is used!