Most people know how to apply bar and line charts while using Microsoft Excel. In any case, its primary purpose is to process data; therefore, most graphs and charts can be used. It really needs advanced graph techniques to be able to raise your game in data analysis and presentation.
These techniques enable the user to describe complex data in a very lucid and exciting manner. It can be used for reports, presentations, or while making decisions based on data. The following is an introduction to some of the advanced graph techniques available in Excel, along with how to apply these techniques effectively.
1. Overview of Advanced Graphing Types in Excel
An advanced graph gives insight where simple graphics cannot. Some examples include the following types of graphs:
Combo Charts: The combination of two chart types in one, making them perfect to use when a chart might show related data with scales different from those of one another. For example, you might plot sales in columns with a line describing growth.
Histogram: This graph is good to represent the distribution of a data set and it is useful to know the frequency of a given range of values. Excel lets you change the ranges of your bins, which can let you do much more detailed analysis of groupings.
Box and Whisker Plot: The data distribution is represented in terms of the quartiles and expressing the outliers. It suits the purpose of showing the variability of data and can be used to detect the outliers when dealing with data sets concerned with financial performance or responses in a survey.
Waterfall chart: It is helpful if you want to see how all the sequential positive and negative values add up to or subtract from a total value-for example, analyzing the profit and loss statement and expense breakdown over time.
Pivot chart: Pivot Charts are created from Pivot tables. Pivot charts are very dynamic and can be applied when you have interactive data analysis since they will change with filter changes and support drilling down into areas where you might need it and are useful for complex data.
2. Configure Your Chart to Produce Best Clarity
You choose a type only once but you do everything that can be done with one in subsequent steps. The leading types are there which allow customizations as far as their clarity and the amount of effective impact that will be produced are concerned. I mention two of these below:
There is an efficient utilization of the data if the use of
Data Labels: It helps to understand some figures shown on this graph a bit better. The heading provides clarity about some place within this graph but one uses it enough, might scatter out in your resulting presentation. Click on Add/Remove/format option and access from MS Excel.
Customize axis ranges: At times the default would be such that your axes range does not display some reasonable fit data in the best configuration it can afford. Change it to better allow a good idea for usage of meaningful and convenient aspects from the viewpoint on how the distribution in your scale.
Add Secondary Axes: A secondary axis is useful with combination charts or with data consisting of large and very small values. This would mean having two distinct scales on one chart-thus all points are now visible and understandable.
Personalize Colors and Patterns: There are numerous colors and patterns available in Excel for charts. Use colors that can easily be differentiated and can be a complement to your theme or brand. Avoid jarring colors because they make the chart difficult to read.
Legend Alignment and Formatting: In the legend section, you are in a position to point out items in a chart easily. This is because positioning and formatting help you to achieve a neat chart. If you feel that the chart is self-explanatory, you could just delete its legend.
3. Using Interactive Analytical Analysis of Data with Dynamic Charts
The interactive feature of dynamic charts allows Excel to be interactivity-driven, where they automatically update dynamically according to some particular data that is updated through each user input. Some of the items applied are slicers, filters, and named ranges.
Pivot Chart Slicers: If using slicers, you may include interactive filtering for Pivot Charts. You may often want quickly to see the sales of a region or of a quarter; slicers are just what the doctor ordered and are useful for dashboards as well.
Named Ranges: A dynamic named range changes with rows or columns that get added or removed from it. That is just ideal for charts based on dynamically changing datasets and saves updating of data ranges.
Dynamic Chart Titles: you can link chart titles with individual cells. This is excellent to have the chart title be updated automatically in any event, especially if using these charts in reports whose information changes very frequently.
4. Advanced Chart Templates
You can save any of your custom chart layouts as templates with Excel. So if you end up making a lot of the same kinds of charts, this could literally save you so much time in the end. Here is how you create a chart template.
Make and lay out your chart however you would like.
Right click chart and select save as template.
Save the file in the default template folder of Excel so that it will be easy to access later for your future projects.
To use the template, simply click on Templates from the menu of chart types. Your saved template will pop up and you can use it for any dataset with your favorite settings and styles.
5. Tips for Presenting Advanced Graphs Effectively
To master advanced graphs, one should understand not only how to draw them but also how to present them:
Keep it simple: Don’t throw too much graphic at your audience. Every graphic will have a purpose-to make a point about a trend, in comparison, or in relation to distribution.
Use Annotations: For big data, annotations can be used to help the viewer. You can put text boxes or shapes in your Excel sheet to annotate important data points about peaks, dips, or anomalies.
Readability Optimization: Text elements include axis labels, titles, and data labels. These elements should read well. Text using a larger font and nice color avoids visual strain.
Conclusion
Mastering advanced Excel graph techniques empowers you to be able to make your complicated data presentable to the best of your capacity. Of course, you can really do many great things such as Combo Charts and even dynamic Pivot Charts in ways you can play with presenting information in Excel. Do not forget, of course, to personalize with dynamic features for an interactive feel, and most important, learn clear presentation. Put all that together to make insightful charts and make data analysis both interesting and informative for whatever audience you are presenting to.