Make bar charts in original order of data for improved readability [charting tip]
To make friends in a new town hit the bars – Old saying.
To make sense of a new data-set, make bar charts – New saying.
Bar charts (or column charts if you like your data straight up) are vital in data analysis. They are easy to make. But one problem. By default, a bar chart show the original data in reverse order.
See the above example.
Unfortunately, we humans read from top to bottom, not the other way around.
Declutter your reports by showing icon only
Conditional formatting is one of the most powerful & awesome features of Excel. It is very easy to setup. Naturally, people use it extensively. But the default conditional formatting rules can clutter your reports. Here is one tip that can declutter your reports.
Just show the formatting, not values.
See the above report.
Use shapes to enhance your Excel charts [tip]
Here is a simple way to enhance your Excel charts – use shapes & pictures in your charts.
We will learn how to create something like above.
Looks interesting? Read on…
Remove duplicate combinations in your data [quick tip]
By now, we know how to remove duplicates from data. You can use the Remove Duplicates button to do that.
But do you know that we can use remove duplicates button to get rid off duplicate combinations too?
Remove duplicate combinations – Tutorial
To remove duplicate combinations in your data, just follow below 4 steps:
- Select your data
- Click on Data > Remove Duplicates button
- Make sure all columns are checked
- Click ok and done!
See this demo:
CP041: 6 charts you’ll see in hell – v2.0
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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In the 41st session of Chandoo.org podcast, Let’s take a trip to data hell and meet 6 ugly, clumsy, confusing charts. I am revisiting a classic Chandoo.org article – 6 Charts you will see in hell.
What is in this session?
In this podcast,
- Quick announcement about Awesome August
- 6 charts you should avoid
- 3D charts
- Pie / donut charts with too many slices
- Too much data
- Over formatting
- Complex charts
- Charts that don’t tell a story
- Conclusions
Save time with custom ribbons in Excel [tutorial]
A significant portion of our time in Excel is spent navigating between various ribbon tabs and clicking buttons. Wouldn’t it be better if you can combine all the frequently used features in to one ribbon? Something like above:
Read on to learn how to create, edit and share custom ribbons in Excel.
Calculate sum of top 10 values [formulas + homework]
Analyzing top n (or bottom m) items is an important part of any data analysis exercise. In this article, we are going to learn Excel formulas to help you with that.
Let’s say you are the lead analyst at a large retail chain in Ohio, USA. You are looking at the latest sales data for all the 300 stores. You want to calculate the total sales of top 10 stores. Read on to learn the techniques.