How to make a 5 Star Chart (Similar to Amazon)

Earlier in the week Chandoo presented Give more details by showing average and distribution

At the top of the post was a small screen capture from Amazon.com showing a 5 Star chart  showing that Twilight had a 3.5 Star Rating (way over-rated if you ask me).

I received an email shortly afterwards from Rajiv, “How can I make one of those charts ? ” with the Stars Circled

It’s actually very simple and this post will show you how.

The Technique

The technique involves putting a mask in front of a single bar from a Bar Chart

The mask has a plain background and has cut-outs where the Stars are, which are transparent and so only the bar chart shows through in those areas which are cut out.

Lets Do It

On a worksheet we need a cell where we have a Rating Value, lets use B2

Make the value in Cell B2, 5

Select the cell B2 and Insert Chart

Insert a Bar Chart (Clustered Bar)

Delete the following chart objects

• Title
• Legend
• Major Grid Lines

Select the Horizontal Axis

Format Axis

Change the Horizontal Axis Scale to

• Minimum 0
• Maximum 5

Delete the Horizontal and Vertical Axis

Move the chart and resize the Bar to your requirements

Change the Bar’s Fill to suit

Set Border color to No Color

Insert Picture

Import the 5 Star mask attached here

Position the mask in front of the charts Bar

With the mask selected shift the Right hand side and then left hand side so that you can just see the edges of the bar.

Check the placement by trying the numbers from 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 0.1 in B2

You should see all the stars perfectly when the placement is correct

Select the Chart and 5 Star Mask together

Use Shift while selecting each one

Group the Chart and Mask together, so that they can’t be moved

Your are free to shift and resize this combined object on your worksheet as required

Vertical Charts

A Similar technique can be used for Vertical Charts using a Column Chart instead of a Bar Chart

Masks

The masks used here were made in CorelDRAW, but can be made in any Drawing/Paint program like Paint.NET, that allows you to save PNG’s with Transparency effects

The masks consists of:

• 5 Stars which have no outline color and are transparent
• 1 Rectangle which is White with no Outline color

The 6 objects are then Joined enabling the holes of the Stars to show through the White Rectangle

Using this technique any shape can be used as a mask

I have included the following masks for you to practice with or use:

5 Stars Mask,

5 Stars Mask with Outlined Stars,

5 Circles Mask,

Swirling Line Mask,

Footsteps Mask.

If anybody knows how to join objects together in Excel to make holes through them as required here, Please let us know in the comments below:

Thermometer Charts

The above technique is great for application to Thermometer Charts, where the Thermometer can take on all values from 0 to 100% or 0 to $200,000

or whatever you require.

Files

All the above examples are shown in one file which you can download here or here for the 2003 Version

Download the Waves and Chameleon 2007 or Waves and Chameleon 2003 examples

Extensions of the Technique

This technique can be extended in a number of areas

The Thermometer chart above shows one such area

The other is applying multiple Masks to multiple Bars/Columns in one chart, But I’ll leave you to practice that.

Limitations of the Technique

Two main limitations of this technique are:

Scaling

As Excel charts are scaled, Excel internally decides what space should be between the Plot Area, Titles and the edge of the Chart Area. This is not maintained constantly and hence the Plot Area may scale at a different ratio to the Chart area and overlying mask.

If this happens Ungroup the Chart and mask and reset ecverything at the new size.

Mask Color

The mask has a Fixed color, in the above examples it is white.

The mask cannot be colored in Excel to Match the background color of the Worksheet if it isn’t white.

So a new Mask will need to be made.

What Do you Think of this Technique

What Do you Think of this Technique?

How else can you see this technique being extended?

Let us know in the comments below: