Let’s start the new year with a bang.
Excel Tables were introduced more than a decade ago, but a lot of people don’t know them or under utilize them. So start this year by becoming a very table genius.
What is Excel Table?
Excel tables are a simple and elegant way to structure and store your data. Let’s say you have staff details like below. Instead of calling it like A1:E72, you can convert this data in to a table and call it, you guessed it right, covfefe (or more coherent option like – staff).
So how to use tables?
Simple, select any cell in your data and press the big button.
To use a table:
- Select any cell in your data
- Press CTRL + T or click on Insert > Table
- Bingo, your data is now a table.
Excel will name this table as Table3 or something like that. Just use Design tab to rename the table to whatever you want.
But why use tables at all?
Tables offer many powerful data analysis, reporting and storage features.
- Structure and format the data: As soon as you turn your data in to a table, Excel will apply several quick formatting rules to your data. This simplifies how you enter, read and understand your data. Also, tables are logical structures to store your data. So when you add data at the end of table, the formatting and range for the table automatically extends.
- Use structural references: If your data is in tabular format, you can apply structural referencing to write formulas. This is so much simpler than cell address based referencing of data. For example, to count number of staff at Manager level, you can use this formula:
=COUNTIFS(staff[Manager?],”Manager”)Tutorial: All you need to know about structural references and table formulas. - Apply sub-totals and filters with ease: You can add a total row to any table to show various kinds of totals (sum, count, average etc.) for the displayed data. If you filter, update or add to your table, the totals change too.
- Slice your data: Starting with Excel 2013, you can apply slicers to Excel tables. This way you can visually filter your data with ease.Tutorial: All about Excel slicers
- Connect multiple tables with relationships: Starting Excel 2013, you can connect multiple tables just like a database. Once you have a data model like this in Excel, you can create powerful and insightful connected pivot tables too. Learn all about table relationship feature.
- Send tabular data to Power Pivot, Power Query or Power BI with ease: Tabular data can be easily accessed by power tools like Power Pivot for Excel, Power Query (Get & Transform Data) and Power BI. This liberates your Excel data and enables powerful data clean up, analysis and visualizations.
- Analyze data without hassle: If you create a pivot table from tabular data, then any changes to table are available to pivots automatically. You just need to refresh the pivot reports to see updated summaries. Learn more about Excel pivot tables.
- Visualize data with ease: If you create a chart from tabular data, then anytime your table is updated (add new rows, delete rows or update data), then your chart is updated automatically. This enables powerful interactive and dynamic charting experiences for your users. Check out below dynamic chart examples.
Become a table genius then…
Press your big button without hesitation (or simply use CTRL+T) to enter the awesome world of tables. Check out below tutorials and tips to guide you along the way.
- Start with introduction to Excel tables
- Learn all about structural referencing
- Connect multiple tables with relationships
- Using VLOOKUP and other formulas with tables
- Customize table styles
Are you a #TableGenius?
Are you #XLTableGenius? Go ahead and thump your chest and let the world know. Tweet with #XLTableGenius and post comments about how you rock the world with tables.
14 Responses to “Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability”
I think the virtue of pie charts is precisely that they are difficult to decode. In many contexts, you have to release information but you don't want the relationship between values to jump at your reader. That's when pie charts are most useful.
[...] link Leave a Reply [...]
Chandoo,
millions of ants cannot be mistaken.....There should be a reason why everybody continues using Pie charts, despite what gurus like you or Jon and others say.
one reason could be because we are just used to, so that's what we need to change, the "comfort zone"...
i absolutely agree, since I've been "converted", I just find out that bar charts are clearer, and nicer to the view...
Regards,
Martin
[...] says we can Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability. Such a pie has too many labels to fit into a tight space, so you need ro move the labels around [...]
Chandoo -
You ask "Can I use an alternative to pie chart?"
I answer in You Say “Pie”, I Say “Bar”.
This visualization was created because it was easy to print before computers. In this day and age, it should not exist.
I think the 100% Bar Chart is just as useless/unreadable as Pies - we should rename them something like Mama's Strudel Charts - how big a slice would you like, Dear?
My money's with Jon on this topic.
The primary function of any pie chart with more than 2 or 3 data points is to obfuscate. But maybe that is the main purpose, as @Jerome suggests...
@Jerome.. Good point. Also sometimes, there is just no relationship at all.
@Martin... Organized religion is finding it tough to get converts even after 2000+ years of struggle. Jon, Stephen, countless others (and me) are a small army, it would take atleast 5000 more years before pie charts vanish... patience and good to have you here 🙂
@Jon .. very well done sir, very well done.
good points every one...
I've got to throw my vote into Jon's camp (which is also Stephen Few's camp) -- bars just tend to work better. One observation about when we say "what people are used to." There are two distinct groups here (depending on the situation, a person can fall in either one): the person who *creates* the chart and the person who *consumes* the chart. Granted, the consumers are "used to" pie charts. But, it's not like a bar chart is something they would struggle to understand or that would require explanation (like sparklines and bullet graphs). Chart consumers are "used to" consuming whatever is put in front of them. Chart creators, on the other hand, may be "used to" creating pie charts, but that isn't an excuse for them to continue to do so -- many people are used to driving without a seatbelt, leaving lights on in their house needlessly, and forwarding not-all-that-funny anecdotes via email. That doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be discouraged!
[...] example that Chandoo used recently is counting uses of words. Clearly, there are other meanings of “bar” (take bar mitzvah or bar none, for [...]
[…] Grouping smaller slices in pie chart […]
Good article. Is it possible to do that with line charts?
Hi,
Is this available in excel 2013?