I was toying with the idea of creating a tag cloud in excel – as a form of new visualization, this could be useful when you have medium amounts of data (eg: 50-300 rows) and you want to emphasize on what is important and what is not. I would imagine using a tag-cloud,
- When you are listing features of your software
- When you are listing your sales figures across top 1000 cities of your country
- When you are analyzing visitor data to your web start up
My goal is to generate a tag cloud from a selected data table (with just 2 columns, one with text to display, the other with any number on it) as shown below:
Download and play with a sample tag cloud visualization I have created
Since anything related to changing cell formats is not possible using functions, I had to write a VBA Macro (a subroutine that you would write in your excel sheet to achieve a task). The logic is simple:
1. Read the selected table and create 2 arrays, 1 with tags and another with the numeric data
2. Select an empty cell in the work book (I choose E10)
3. For each item in tags array:
– Add text to the selected cell
– set its font size based on normalized value between 6 and 20
The code is shown below:
Sub createCloud()
‘ this subroutine creates a tag cloud based on the list format tagname, tag importance
‘ the tag importance can have any value, it will be normalized to a value between 8 and 20On Error GoTo tackle_this
Dim size As Integer
size = Selection.Count / 2
Dim tags() As String
Dim importance()ReDim tags(1 To size) As String
ReDim importance(1 To size)Dim minImp As Integer
Dim maxImp As Integercntr = 1
i = 1For Each cell In Excel.Selection
If cntr Mod 2 = 1 Then
taglist = taglist & cell.Value & “, ”
tags(i) = cell.Value
Else
importance(i) = Val(cell.Value)
If importance(i) > maxImp Then
maxImp = importance(i)
End If
If importance(i) < minImp Then minImp = importance(i) End If i = i + 1 End If cntr = cntr + 1 Next cell ' paste values in cell e10 Range("e10").Select ActiveCell.Value = taglist ActiveCell.Font.size = 8 strt = 1 For i = 1 To size With ActiveCell.Characters(Start:=strt, Length:=Len(tags(i))).Font .size = 6 + Math.Round((importance(i) - minImp) / (maxImp - minImp) * 14, 0) .Strikethrough = False .Superscript = False .Subscript = False .OutlineFont = False .Shadow = False .Underline = xlUnderlineStyleNone .ColorIndex = xlAutomatic End With strt = strt + Len(tags(i)) + 2 Next i Exit Sub tackle_this: ' errors handled here 'MsgBox "You need to select a table so that I can create a tag cloud", vbCritical + vbOKOnly, "Wow, looks like there is an error!" End Sub
This code is totally reusable. Just right click on the sheet name at bottom & select “view code”. In the VBA Editor create a new module (Menu > Insert > module) and Paste the above code there. Go back to your excel sheet and select a 2 columned data table and run the createCloud macro. The cloud will be created and pasted in cell E10. You can change this by modifying the line Range(“e10”).Select.
Download the above code and an example in an excel
Happy charting 🙂
23 Responses to “Learn Top 10 Excel Features”
What it looks like if excel without formula?? 🙂
It would be not excel it would just be fancy tables in which you could just use power point. (Chandoo) would Access be an alternative?
Awesome piece of work!!!
Great article.
Chandoo - my biggest interest in the article was the awesome word-graphic at the top - where did you go to get it done into a shape?
@Rich.. thank you. I used http://www.tagxedo.com/ to generate this word cloud. I took all the comments in the original post, pasted them in tagxedo website and set up the shape etc.
Awesome Chandoo.. You need always needs coffee to start up with. BTW , how did u created the Heart Shaped picture filled with High Repetitive text in it .. Please put it on your Next blog ...
Chandoo, good article. I’ve added a link to it from Connexion – our collection of the most useful and interesting spreadsheet-related articles from the web. See http://www.i-nth.com/resources/connexion
Hi,
Just one small question. Where the hell have been I in the past for not discovering this website sooner?
I've lost a job interview recently where even though I had the subject knowledge, I was not upto their mark in Excel.
Thank you for all the free tips, guidance and for creating this forum environment.
[PS: I've just been through the site for the 1st time, and have signed up for the newsletter. You can expect pretty stupid questions from me soon]
Hy Chandoo, you always inspire me with to explore something new in excel. This data structure table is only for excel 2007 or compatible to 2010. I recently installed latest excel version 2013 in my System and experience problems regarding operating according to previous one. I'm waiting your article relates to that excel version.
Thanks
Awesome article Mr. Chandoo and that is a awesome heart shaped pic you created. Great tips as well.
[...] Learn Top 10 Excel Features | Chandoo.org – Learn Microsoft Excel Online. [...]
Chandoo is awesome..
Thanks, i got better, And i always get 90.50 in my grade card but now i get 96.50 i improved because of the tutorials you gave, Thank You Very Much Chandoo Guy.
Hi chandoo, i am intersted in seeing the video or step by step done procedure of analysing the comments and presenting in the data percentage steps. I think this one would be first step in finding out how generally happens data calculation. Thank you.
As well i would like to know how to get that black shape art of your face which i see in chandoo. I am interested in making it for me.
Nice to see the features considered by Excel users to be most useful. It might be a good idea to also analyze StackOverflow Excel questions to see what keywords appear most often.
Here are my top 10 Excel Features (for advanced users):
http://www.analystcave.com/excel-10-top-excel-features/
Thanks a ton for this it totally helped with my homework ????
Very good effort
Thank you for this. Lots of learning in the links you've provided for this septuagenarian.
Pls send me new post
Dude, your humor ? ?
Loved your work.
Hello Sir,
I am Sanjeev Khakre and i from Indore City, India , I am your big follower and i have watch your videos and learnt a lots of excel trick or function and many more . thanks so much for all of your excellent support.
Your excel knowledge is real awesome.
Thanks
Sanjeev
Your work is excellent but pls willing to know more details about the features of microsoft excel
Chandoo Would Access be a better alternative than VB?