Rama, one of our readers emailed this:
Hello Chandoo I am very new to vba. Help me with this
Q) I Have Many List boxes In That I need to Hide Few Of them Using Check box
Example:If I have List boxes Like A,A1,B,B1
If I Check On Check box A(Captioned As A) It Should show A,A1 List boxes. If I Unchecked it Should Hide A,A1 List boxes
In a similar manner if i checked Check box B .It Should show B,B1 List boxes. If I Unchecked it Should Hide B,B1 List boxes
Show Hide list boxes by using a check box
We can use check box and a bit of VBA to do this easily. First see this demo:
How to show or hide list boxes – Video
Although the concept behind this is very simple, explaining it in a post will make it very long. So I made a 10 minute video. Please watch it below:
[Watch this on our youtube page]
For more on this technique – see Customer Service Dashboard article.
To insert check boxes & list boxes see this tutorial.
Download example workbook
Click here to download the example workbook to understand this technique better. Examine the code in module 1 & 2 to know more.
How do you hide / show things using VBA?
Selectively hiding or showing is a great way to enhance your models, dashboards or reports. I use this technique very often. Most of my dashboards, products etc. contain interactive help that user can see or hide with a click. In background, I use few lines of VBA to do this magic.
What about you? Do you face similar situations? How do you handle them? Share your VBA tips & ideas using comments.
Are you new to VBA?
If so, you have hit a treasure chest. Start with our Excel VBA page and get the basics. Once you are ready to take a deep dive, go thru dozens of VBA / Macro Examples.
And when you want more, consider joining our VBA classes.
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!!!!