My friend Paresh writes excellent commentary on charts on his blog Visual Quest. Last week he gave a home work, asking his readers to recreate the small multiples chart shown below.
I found this quite interesting. Small multiples, also called as panel charts, are a powerful way to depict multidimensional data and bring out insights. They are easy to read too.
So, today, let us learn how to create such charts using Excel.
Step 1: Arrange your data
Almost any chart or visualization worth its salt must begin with proper arrangement of data. Since I could not get the data for the unemployment chart, I made up a few numbers for a fictional Confectionery Company. The data is shown below.
So, we have the data for years 2007 thru 2010, for the regions – South, West & North and for the product lines – Chocolates & Biscuits
Step 2: Select Products for one region & make an area chart
This is simple. Just select data for chocolates & biscuits for one region and make an area chart. You should have something like this:
Step 3: Resize the area chart & format it
Now, we need to make this area chart closer to what we want.
- Select the bottom area series and fill it with white color.
- Now resize the chart so that we can fit 3 of them in the area you got.
Step 4: Add same data to the chart
Now, select the same region data, press CTRL+C to copy it. Select the chart and paste it by pressing CTRL+V. See below demo to understand how to do this.
We are doing this because we want to have lines with markers on our chart. But the area chart lines cannot show markers. So we are going to add the same data one more time, but this time format it to be shown as a line.
Step 5: Select the new series and format them as line charts
Select each of the new area series and format as line chart with markers.
You should have something like this at the end.
Step 6: Format the chart
This is where you unleash the creativity. In order to match the look of NYTimes chart, here is what you can do.
- Set the fill color between lines to something dull.
- Format 2 lines in distinct colors.
- Format gridlines & axis lines to something dull.
- Set axis maximum to 25 (as all charts in small-multiples should have same axis settings)
- Set axis major unit to 5.
Step 7: Repeat this for other regions
Now, just copy and paste this chart a couple of times. Just adjust the data source so that we have new charts using this technique.
Note: Learn how you can add descriptive labels to charts.
That is all. You just made a small multiples chart that looks awesome. Congratulations.
Download Small Multiples Example Workbook
Click here to download the example workbook and play with it. You can see the steps for making one of the charts in the workbook as well.
Do you use Small Multiples or Panel Charts?
I really love to use small multiples or panel charts whenever I am analyzing data or presenting results of the same. They offer excellent value per pixel. That said, they take some time to construct. Also, you must tweak axis settings and plot area to get the perfect result. That is why I prefer the in-cell variation of these charts. They are quick to setup and easy to wow (for more on these techniques, see below).
What about you? Do you use Small Multiples or Panel charts? How do you find them? Please share using comments.
Interested to learn more? Read these
As you can guess, small multiples is one of my favorite ways to explore and present data. So we have written quite a few articles explaining this technique. Read these to learn more.
8 Responses to “Top 5 keyboard shortcuts for Excel Charts”
As far as I remember (checked, again, 2 minutes ago) in my "Excel 2013" in order to select various chart elements I need to use the Arrow keys and not the TAB key.
Practically, the TAB key does nothing (within a Chart).
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Michael (Micky) Avidan
Thanks for pointing this out. This is how I remember it too, but when I was recording the video yesterday, only TAB key worked. MS must have changed the keys in Excel 2016. I have edited the post to include both keys.
The key navigation on charts is different in 2016.
TAB cycles through a layer of objects (SHIFT+TAB cycles backwards)
ENTER move down a layer
ESC moves up a layer
So on a column chart with title/legend/data labels if you select the plotarea the TAB will go through Title > Legend > Plotarea.
ENTER at plotarea will then select Vertical axis. Tab will take you through
Horizontal axis > gridlines > Series > Horizontal Axis.
ENTER with series selected will then allow you to TAB through individual data points and data labels.
If you ENTER on datalabels you can TAB through each data label.
ALT + F1 : to create default chart
ALT+E S T = CTRL + ALT + V, T : I find that easier to remember
I second what Michael already said about TAB and arrow keys. I can't help but think if this is related to the "," or ";" as separator. I prefer to use the chart tools - layout- drop down box, anyway.
Got to be F11 for instant charting. Highlight your data , hit F11 and voila! ?
Ctrl+1 is the most important chart shortcut. In fact, it works for any Excel object: whatever is selected, Ctrl+1 opens the task pane or dialog to format that object.
Somewhere along the line, maybe when Excel 2016 came out, the arrow keys stopped working to cycle through the elements of a chart. But what works is holding Ctrl while clicking the arrow keys. I haven't gotten used to the Tab and other keys, but as long as Ctrl+Arrow works, I'm good.
And F4 used to be so helpful when formatting a lot of charts. But since Excel 2007 came out, it has been mostly useless. It used to remember a whole set of changes at once, so I get that the newer modeless dialogs make that impractical. But now it only seems to work with formatting of lines and borders, and maybe fills. I find myself writing a lot of VBA one-liners in the Immediate Window to handle these tedious formatting tasks.
after clicking on a chart, is there a shortcut key to copy it?
Thank you for the Alt E S T - tip. This is more than a time saver. Because of dynamic charts or de-activated external references to data when you make the charts, you often have empty charts that are otherwise impossible to format. So this shortcut helps adressing that. I will work with it more and see if there remain some obstacles.