Titles are an overlooked aspect of most charts. Bland titles miss out on so much rich information that could enhance a user’s understanding. So, in this post, we look at how to create dynamic chart titles in Excel. Here is an example of bad and good chart titles: Hopefully, you agree the second chart provides a … Read more
At this year’s Global Excel Summit, two presentations included Jitter plots. So, this got me thinking about how I would create one in Excel. If you’re not sure what a jitter plot is, this is the final chart we are creating in this post: I decided to make the jitter plot 100% dynamic so the … Read more
Dumbbell dot plots are an excellent chart style for presenting comparative data. These chart styles quickly show the difference or progress between two data points. Often, Excel tutorials for dumbbell dot plots create charts that require manual updating for new data. But using the right Excel techniques these charts can be fully dynamic. So, in … Read more
Recently, in our training academy, charting legend Jon Peltier demonstrated the best data structure required for working with Charts in Excel. Following this, one of our academy members asked this question: I am trying to use what Jon was teaching in the charting master class for stacked legends. Is there anyway to get that … Read more
Power BI has a really nice way of cross-filtering visuals. When you click on a visual, it highlights the selected item in other charts while also retaining the total value in a lighter color. Can we cross filter visuals in Excel? No. But we can create something pretty close. Power BI Example: This post was … Read more
In a previous post, we created a waffle chart in Excel using the easiest method. To use it as an object on any worksheet, we needed to use a linked picture. The problem is that linked pictures don’t work in Excel Online (I know!!! Super annoying, right!). So, in this post, I want to show … Read more
Waffle charts are like square pie charts. However, rather than slices of a pie, values are represented by the number of colored squares. They are commonly found on dashboards and newspaper articles because they are easy to read at a glance. In this post, we look at how to make waffle charts in Excel using … Read more
I was recently asked to add a QR code to a document. While I had seen them before, I had never needed to create one from scratch. But, it turns out it’s pretty simple and free in Excel. So, in this post, we look at 3 easy ways to create QR codes in Excel. Table … Read more
Chart legends show us what each Series in a chart represents. These legends are often placed in boxes near the chart. However, research shows that separating the labels from the item in this way requires more brain power from readers and detracts from the key message. So, in this post, we look at how to … Read more
Sankey diagrams are used to show flow between two or more categories, where the width of each individual element is proportional to the flow rate. These chart types are available in Power BI, but are not natively available in Excel. However, today I want to show you that it is possible to create a Sankey diagram … Read more