Last week we saw a really cool holiday request form made by Theodor.
This week, we will learn how to combine conditional formatting and data validation to create an awesome data entry form.
First see a demo to understand what I mean:
How to create such a data entry form?
Very simple, just grab a cup of coffee (or your favorite fried-nuts-crushed-and-brewed-with-hot-water) and follow my lead.
Step 1: Set up Data Validation
Assuming you need to gather some inputs, like shown above. First thing to do would be setting up data validation rules in a cell so that your users can specify the type of data they are entering. For eg. they can choose card or paypal or other as payment mode and depending on that, enter further details.
To do this, just select the cell and go to Data > Validation. Choose “List” as the rule and give values.
Step 2: Add conditional formatting rules.
Now, based on the selected value, we need to highlight a set of cells.
Assuming all the data to be gathered in cells C4:G4,
Select first two cells (C4:D4), go to Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule
Here, we need to tell Excel to highlight the C4 and D4 if the type of payment is Card.
So choose the CF rule type as “Use a formula to determine which cells to format” and the check if $B4 is “card”.
Tip: We need to use $B4 since we want Excel to check column B even if we are applying formatting to C4 or D4. Read more.Step 3: Add Conditional Formatting rules to other cells (E4:F4, G4)
Using the same logic.
Step 4: Bask in glory!
That is all. There is no step 4. We are done. Finish the coffee or whatever you mixed with hot water. Just save the file and send it to your customer, vendor or boss. Bask in glory as there will be fewer data entry mistakes and more awesome.
Home work: Get Creative and do more
You can use some creativity and make the data entry form even more awesome. For example, you could show a tick mark when the data entry is complete. Also you could highlight only when the cell is blank (ie if the data is already entered, there is no point highlighting)
See what I came up with:
I am not going to tell you how to do the above. That is for you to figure out.
Download Excel Files
Click here to download the excel file with the data entry form example. Play with it to understand how to make similar forms. Become awesome!
And if you can not solve the homework problem, download this file and examine it.
How do you make your data entry forms awesome?
I love data validation. It makes the whole process of gathering valid data dead simple. Also, it is an excellent way to change month or other settings in dashboards. (example 1, 2, 3)
What about you? How do you use Data Validation and other excel features to make your input forms both simple and awesome? Please share your experiences and ideas using comments. Go!
Learn More About Data Validation & Conditional Formatting:
As I said earlier, I really love data validation, conditional formatting features of Excel. They are quite powerful and very useful when working with lots of data. We have very good information about these features on chandoo.org. Start with the below articles to learn more.
- What is Conditional Formatting and how to use it? [Video]
- How to create a simple data validation list?
- 5 tips to become conditional formatting rock star
- More tutorials & tips on conditional formatting, data validation
- Recommended: Join Excel School if you work with data often. You will save a ton of time.
15 Responses to “Make a Bubble Chart in Excel [15 second tutorial]”
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
Whyyyyyyyy?
The idea is to tell how to make a bubble chart. I got an e-mail from a reader recently asking how the scatter bubble is made. So I thought a 15 second tutorial would be a good idea to show this.
Did that email go "Dear Chandoo, I know that you scorn bubble charts, but if I don't do one in Excel for my boss then he'll fire my sorry ass, and my children will have to be sold for medical experiments in order for me to be able to afford the upgrade path to Excel 2010"?
If so, fair enough...it's all in the greater good 😉
Chandoo,
I am using excel 2003 and it is not working. The x axis is not the one that I enter in x axis column. Please help! Thanks.
Sorry, after few attempts, I managed to get the right result. I shouldn't select the title (header) of the table and select only the data to produce the right bubble chart.
What's wrong with bubble charts? Is there a better method for displaying scatter plots with lots of overlapping data points? Don't tell me you'd rather jitter!
@Sanwijay: Cool.
@Precious Roy: There is nothing wrong with bubble charts. Infact, it is the only way to show 3 dimensional data (x,y and sizes) without confusing your audience. Jeff is worried that people might misuse the chart. As with any chart, bubbles also have a place and time for using them.
I recommend using bubble charts to show relative performance various products in several regions and similar situations.
Also, human eye is notorious in wrongly estimating the bubble sizes (as we have to measure areas). See http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/07/28/charting-lessons-from-optical-illusions/
We can partially improve bubble charts by adding data labels, but if you have too many bubbles, the labels will clutter the chart and make it look busy.
I can't seem to find a way to plot more than ten bubbles on a chart and need to know how to add more
@KW.. why would such a thing happen. I am sure you can add more bubbles that that. Can you tell us exactly what you are doing...
Example table:
A B C (size)
Me: 25 30 15%
Him: 30 22 11%
Her: 12 30 20%
I am trying to make a bubble chart where the Y axis is A, the X axis is B, and the size of the bubble is C. There should be only 3 bubbles. I keep ending up with six (with the labels being only "Me" and "Her"). My goal is to have three bubbles, one representing each person. Clearly I am doing something wrong. Can you help explain...?
Hi,
I wanted to add data labels to the bubbles. Each bubble represents a different company name. Excel allows me to add the size, legend, x axis values and y axis values. How do I add instead- Company A, B, C, D for the bubbles?
youon you have to choice every data for every company..
ex:create bubble for A company,after that click right> add data label> adjust data labels :format data labels and choose : series name.
i hop u will succeed .
[...] we create a bubble chart with 2 bubbles. 1 for the actual mustache & 1 for target [...]
If we want bubble size to be controlled by one column, but the bubble labels to be controlled by another column, how can this be achieved?
many thanks!!!!