I can never get tired of in-cell charts, whenever I get sometime, I try to experiment something on them. Here is an idea to design true incell column charts without using any add-ins or installing fonts. These charts can be fun to have on your project report or annual news letter or memos, they take as much time as munching a handful of M&Ms.
Download excel chart containing incell bar chart example
1. First we will create in-cell chart using rept() the usual way
This is the simple step. For a sample data, we can use rept() excel function to repetitively print a symbol. Thus, by repetitively printing “|” (pipe) we can create incell bar charts.
REPT() example is shown below:
=rept("|",10)will print||||||||||
2. Next combine several incell charts to create a column chart
We can combine various incell charts using excel’s concatenate() function or & operator. Better still you can use the concat() UDF. The trick here is we will delimit each chart with an ENTER key code by using char(10) as the delimiter. When used along with “wrap text” cell format this key code will force cell contents to a newline where the char code 10 is inserted.
3. Finally rotate the cell contents by 900 to make the charts vertical
Just select the cell contents, hit ALT+1, and set the alignment formats so that the text is vertically aligned in the cell, and turn on wrap text.
That is all, you will now have an incell bar chart that is vertical like the one below:
Pretty cool eh?
11 Responses to “Fix Incorrect Percentages with this Paste-Special Trick”
I've just taught yesterday to a colleague of mine how to convert amounts in local currency into another by pasting special the ROE.
great thing to know !!!
Chandoo - this is such a great trick and helps save time. If you don't use this shortcut, you have to take can create a formula where =(ref cell /100), copy that all the way down, covert it to a percentage and then copy/paste values to the original column. This does it all much faster. Nice job!
I was just asking peers yesterday if anyone know if an easy way to do this, I've been editing each cell and adding a % manually vs setting the cell to Percentage for months and just finally reached my wits end. What perfect timing! Thanks, great tip!
If it's just appearance you care about, another alternative is to use this custom number format:
0"%"
By adding the percent sign in quotes, it gets treated as text and won't do what you warned about here: "You can not just format the cells to % format either, excel shows 23 as 2300% then."
Dear Jon S. You are the reason I love the internet. 3 year old comments making my life easier.
Thank you.
Here is a quicker protocol.
Enter 10000% into the extra cell, copy this cell, select the range you need to convert to percentages, and use paste special > divide. Since the Paste > All option is selected, it not only divides by 10000% (i.e. 100), it also applies the % format to the cells being pasted on.
@Martin: That is another very good use of Divide / Multiply operations.
@Tony, @Jody: Thank you 🙂
@Jon S: Good one...
@Jon... now why didnt I think of that.. Excellent
Thank You so much. it is really helped me.
Big help...Thanks
Thanks. That really saved me a lot of time!
Is Show Formulas is turned on in the Formula Ribbon, it will stay in decimal form until that is turned off. Drove me batty for an hour until I just figured it out.