Titles are an overlooked aspect of many charts. A bland title misses out on so much rich information which could be used to enhance a users understanding of the report. Here is an example of bad and good chart titles: The 2nd chart title adds additional insight and provides a much richer experience for the Read More
“Not again…” I think to myself every time I change the minimum and maximum values of a chart axis. It’s such a tedious task, and I know I’ll be doing it again at a future point. It only takes a few seconds, but all that time starts to add up. There are various chart objects Read More
A step chart is used to show data which changes at specific points, then remains consistent until the next change occurs. Interest rates set by central banks across the world follow this system. Some dudes in suits meet together on a particular day and decide the rate should change. That change happens instantly and remains Read More
In Excel, the standard column chart will display all columns with the same width at regular intervals. However, in some circumstances, it would be better for the width of each column to be different. For example, where each column represents different ranges of data. This same principle of column width also applies to histograms. Excel Read More
From stock parts to holiday villas, from employees to logos, there are many reasons you may want to automatically change an image based on a cell value. In this post, we’ll explore 3 different methods to achieve this task: Named range + INDEX/MATCH + linked picture Chart fill + #N/A VBA User-Defined Function Each solution Read More
Creating advanced charts in Excel can take a bit of time, as there are so many things to change. Recently, I had to prepare a financial presentation quickly, like really quickly. I knew exactly which charts were required (I had been given very clear instructions) and I knew how to do them (which is always Read More
Whenever I see promotional images for expensive BI Dashboard software, they always show the same thing – a map with countries or regions highlighted in different colors. It sends the subtle message that maps are the pinnacle of Business Intelligence (whether they are or not is a different matter altogether). Until Excel 2016, these Map Read More
I’m not going to lie to you, the first time I saw a Slopegraph I was completely underwhelmed, I thought “it’s a line chart with only two points, hardly worth getting excited about”. But in recent months I have started to love Slopegraphs. By thinking of them as “just a line chart” I was seriously Read More
Imagine, you’ve created a beautiful chart for your Excel report, to make it more beautiful you hide the source data so that it’s not visible to the recipients. They don’t need to see the data anyway, so hiding it seems the best way to get them to focus on the chart. But what happens? As Read More
Sometimes in a chart we want to highlight certain bars so the reader can quickly see the important information. An example would be to highlight our company when it is compared with its competitors (see the chart below). In this chart, it is very easy to see how Fox Books compares to its competitors. There Read More