Jon Peltier can stand on his roof and shout in to a megaphone “Use Bar Charts, Not Pies”, but the fact remains that most of us use pie charts sometime or other. In fact I will go ahead and say that pie charts are actually the most widely used charts in business contexts.

Today I want to teach you a simple pie chart hack that can improve readability of the chart while retaining most of the critical information intact.

Recently I have conducted a survey on my blog to find out your pulse on PHD. Quite a few survey respondents have told me that PHD needs a topic-wise archive so that you can learn excel easily. So over the weekend I have prepared a webpage where you can find topic-wise posts on excel and […]

Most of us use chart formatting options to change the way grid-lines, data series, labels, axis, titles, plot areas look. Chart formatting is one of the areas where people spend most time. Today I want to teach you a quick productivity hack to speed up chart formatting. In excel 2007 and above, when you click […]

Just a quick update, I am extending the visualization challenge #2‘s dead line to 5th Dec. This will give time to our members in US as they are busy celebrating thanksgiving day. Go here for details about the contest, if you win, you will get a cool iPod Touch, sponsored by Zoho Reports. PS: Have […]

It is very usual for retailers to offer huge discounts and offers during thanksgiving, to celebrate the onset of Christmas shopping season. In that spirit, I am announcing PHD thanksgiving sale. The sale is open from now to 26th December, 2009.

If you have already purchased something from me in the last 30 days (that is since 25th October, 2009): You are still eligible for these deals. Just reply to the “purchase confirmation” e-mail I sent you when you bought the stuff and I will give you the offer…

Every year, on 4th Thursday of November, folks in US celebrate Thanksgiving day. A similar holiday exists in Canada too, they celebrate it on Second Monday of Every October.We will celebrate thanksgiving in PHD style, by sharing a wacky formula tip.

Today, we are going to learn how to use excel formulas to find out thanksgiving day’s date for any year.

We interrupt usual routine of excel and charting tutorials to present the first ever readership survey on PHD. In fact, there are so few questions that to call it a survey would be an insult to other surveys, but I digress.

I want you to take few seconds and fill out this very simple form. Just type in whatever comes to your mind, honest and simple stuff. The survey is below, if you are not able to see it in RSS reader or email client, please go to http://bit.ly/phd-survey.