Last week in the Chandoo.org Forums, I was asked could I reproduce the chart below in Excel
Which I did.
This post will describe how to tackle this chart step by step.
You can follow along using some sample data: Download Sample File
Data
To produce this chart we are going to use an Excel Stacked Bar chart with two series of data
The first Series will be for the Colored Bars
The second series is for the Arrow and the gap to the left of the arrow
The data required is shown in the above table
The Arrow Value is an input and is the value the Arrow will point to
The data is the values for the colored bars
The Arrow is two calculations that setup the Arrow, the 58 is the offset from zero to the left side of the arrow
The 4 is the width of the arrow. That is the arrow will point to 60 = 58 + 4 /2
The Cumulative Data is required for the Legend
Chart
In Excel 2016
Select the range C3:G4 and goto Insert Chart
Select Bar, Stacked Bar
In Excel 2010
Select the range C3:G4 and goto Insert Chart
Select Bar, Stacked Bar
Now with the Chart selected goto the Chart Tools, Design Tab
Click on the Switch Row/Column Tab
Excel All Versions
You should now have a chart like:
Bar 1 is the data and Bar 2 will become the arrow
We don’t need the Charts Title, Legend, Grid Lines or Axis, so select each and press Delete
Next we will add an arrow
The Arrow will be placed as a Fill in the Upper Orange Bar
Select a Blank Cell eg: I3
Then goto the Insert, Shapes Menu and select an Isosceles Triangle
Fill the Arrow with what ever color you want and drag the Handle down so that the arrow points down
To insert the arrow, select the Arrow and press Copy (Ctrl+C)
Now select the Chart and click on the Upper Orange Bar, click on it again until it is the only Bar with Handles Showing, the press Paste (Ctrl+V)
Now select the Upper Blue Bar and set its fill and outline to None
Right Click on any Bar and select Format Data Series
Set the Series Overlap to 100% and set the Gap Width to 0%
Now click on the chart, just above the Blue Bar
When the Resize Handles appear, drag them to resize the chart so that the gap between the Top and Bottom Bars is none
We can now add the labels
Select the Orange Bar and then Select it again until it is the only Bar with Handles
Right Click on it and Add Data Label
Now click on the new Data Label and click on it again until the Handles change as shown below
Now in the Formula Bar enter =Chandoo.org!$C$5 and apply
Right click on the Data Label and select Format Data Labels
Set the Label Position to Inside Base
Now repeat for each of the other Bars
and Finally add a Label to the arrow linking it to cell C2. You have to manually drag the Label to above the arrow.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to make a Bar Chart with Indicator Arrow, it should take you less than a minute to copy the bar chart, convert it to a Column chart and reformat it to a Column Chart with arrow as shown below
I hope you enjoyed the above tutorial
24 Responses to “10 Supercool UI Improvements in Excel 2010”
The best improvement by far is the Collapse Ribbon ^ button !
Kind of a shame that some of the best improvements are actually returns to old functionality. One thing I don't like is that to get to recent files I need to do an extra click after File - apart from Save As, that's why I'm usually in the File menu. I like the sparkline options, though they are still as not fully featured as some of the free and pay options out there.
The collapse button for the ribbon menu is good news. Can you make the ribbon menus stick too?
Nine improvements, not ten. You can also select multiple objects in 2007. Click on the Find & Select item at the far right of the Home tab, and the dropdown looks remarkably like your 2010 screenshot.
@Jon.. Thank you. Dumb me, I somehow thought we couldnt select objects in Excel 2007. Just saw the "select menu" and it is there. I have corrected the post and removed the point. I have added the "you can make your own ribbons" instead. Thanks once again.
@Arti: what do you mean by make ribbons stick?
@Alex: May be it is my installation, but when I go to "File menu" I see "recent files" by default.
For example, if I am working with one of the contextual ribbon menus (Pivot tables, Drawing/Chart etc), as soon as I click away from the selected object, the menu tabs vanish. If I click on the object again immediately, then Excel will remember what I was looking at, but if I wander away and click on a Pivot, then back again on the Chart, the menus will 'appear' but not get activated, thereby causing much annoyance and additional clicking.
I want to "pin" the whole menu (not invididual commands) somehow, so that I can have the menu there for the length of the time I am working with graphics. Excel 2003 used to have the Drawing toolbar you could detach and hover while you were working, but this functionality disappeared in Excel 2007.
My thought was Excel should just allow a 'pin', similar to the Recently Opened files menu, for the Ribbon Menus as well. If I have not selected any Drawing object, the commands can be greyed out, but I want the menu as a whole to 'stick'.
@Arti... I think MS solved this problem differently. When I select a pivot and go to "design" tab Excel 2010 remembers this and automatically takes me to "design" tab when I reselect the pivot.
Apart from this you can also define your own ribbon with all the things you normally do. See the above article (I have added this after Jon's comments)
Nice feature. About time for a upgrade for MS Office
Oh... okay. That might be a start. I'd probably just copy-paste the Drawing tab haha. Thanks. I'll definitely give Excel 2010 a try.
Btw - have you considered getting into / gotten into the world of Excel as it meets SharePoint?
Actually, the replacement new thing is probably better than all the rest. One thing that the designers of the Office 2007 ignored was allowing regular users to customize their own interface. Office 2010's interface was expanded in this way to address the huge uproar.
Is there still a limit on how many things you can add to the QAT bar? (I'm too lazy to look myself.)
@Jeff.. it seems to take quite a few, but only shows one line and gives a little arrow button at the end. (summary: shucks!)
The best thing is you can edit the ribbon directly from excel, so now i can create my own bar with just the things I use regularly!
One of the annoying things in 07 for me is the Add-Ins menu bar - in 03 I could keystroke directly to menu add ins.. In 07 I needed an extra keystroke just to activate the add-in menu, then the keystrokes as normal.. Hope this marek sense..
John -
If you remember the old Excel 2003 Alt-key shortcuts, you can still use them in 2007. To get to the Add-In dialog:
Alt-T-I
Dear Arti & Chandoo
Seen your comments over some issues. Hope you are form India, gone through your comment expecting a pin to command it as a whole, great, hope if someone out of MS have read it, it may be kept in mind while the next R & D of Office Ver. 16
Just incase someone forgot CTRL+F1 will collapse the ribbon.
[...] was pleasantly surprised when I ran Microsoft Excel 2010 for first time. It felt smooth, fast, responsive and looked great on my [...]
I like the sparklines, and the ability to modify the charts
How do you get rid of the advertisment on the right hand side? If you upgrade then will it take off the ads?
Once again Microsoft has re-decorated the Office and we are NOT pleased!
The graphics object selector can be found in the Home ribbon under Find & Select, Select Objects near the bottom of the drop down. You can make it part of the Quick Access toolbar by right click over it and selecting Add to Quick Access toolbar.
The graphics "cursor" will now appear on the mini-toolbar at the top left of the window.
How to get rid of "Add-Ins" button in Backstage (File)" menu by means of XML code, i.e. to hide, to delete or to disable this button?
This button is usually situated in the Backstage menu between "Help" and "Options" buttons.
Vladimir, did you ever get an answer to your question?
I am tying to customize the ribbon UI for a file using XML, and this is precisely the piece I can't figure out. I can hide other tabs, remove items from QAT and backstage - all except the options that are showing up under add-ins in backstage. If there is an XML syntax for referencing this thing and making it invisible, I cannot find it.
Hey, nice tutorial. Please check my video tutorial on similar topic at the below link and provide your comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeIFc0jYjpA