Interactive Decision Tree Visualization in Excel [Trump vs. Hillary in Swing States]
It is election time in USA, and that means there is a whole lot of drama, discussions and of course data analysis. There are tons of cool visualizations published on all the data. Previously, we talked about “How Trump happened” chart.
Today let’s take a look at the beautiful decision tree chart by NY Times explaining what would happen if each of the 10 swing states vote for Democrats or Republicans. Go ahead and look at that chart. And when you are done playing with it, come back.
My first thought after looking at the chart is: Wow, that is cool. I wonder how we can recreate that experience in Excel?
But as you can guess, making a dynamic tree visualization in Excel is pretty hard. You can create a bubble chart mixed with XY chart to show all the nodes of the decision tree, but as this tree has 2^10 nodes at the bottom level (and 2^11-1 total nodes) our chart would look very clumsy and busy.
So, instead of replicating NY Times chart, why not make our own version that explains the data? You can reuse this idea when visualizing outcomes of several what-if scenarios.
Currency format Pivot fields with one click [Friday VBA]
Anyone who has made a pivot table and their grandma knows that formatting them is a pain. Let’s recap the steps to apply one of the most common formats – currency format.
- Right click on any value field
- Go to Value field settings
- Click on “Number Format” button
- Choose Currency format
- Close the boxes, one after another
Unless you get paid per click, you wont be happy with all those clicks.
Wouldn’t it be cool to just click once and apply most common format to your pivot fields?
Of course you can. Just add oneClickCurrency macro to your personal macros workbook. And then add this to your Home ribbon as a custom button and you have a one click format option for any pivot.
How to get Maps in to Excel charts & dashboards [Master Class]
This is third episode of our Monthly Master Class.
In this one, you will learn how to get maps in to your Excel workbooks. Understand 5 key techniques for making maps based visualizations in Excel – from regular charts to cell grids to VBA to Power Maps, everything is covered in this intense Master Class.
Teach coding to your kids with this maze game [VBA]
My twins (Nishanth & Nakshtra) are now almost 7. They are super keen to learn how computers work. So the other day, I showed them Code.org where there are several coding exercises disguised as games. They loved those games … err coding exercises. So that got me thinking… why not make a game in Excel that teaches kids simple programming concepts.
So I built a Snowman & Hot Chocolate Maze game. In this post, let’s understand how to build such a game using Excel VBA.
Earth Venus cosmic dance – Animated chart in Excel
Recently I saw an interesting Earth Venus cosmic dance video on Facebook. See the original video below or here.
Although this is not entirely accurate from physics & astronomy perspectives, the dance is a stunning example of patterns that are generated by simple things.
I wanted to recreate this cosmic dance in Excel. How else am I to get my spreadsheet fix on a Saturday?
Here is a quick demo of the final outcome. Read on to learn more about the Earth Venus cosmic dance.
Advanced Interactive Charts using Excel [Master Class]
As announced earlier, here is the first one of our Master Classes. In this one, you will learn how to create advanced interactive charts in Excel by blending pivot tables, slicers, timelines, VBA, conditional formatting and charts. The final outcome is BEAUTIFUL!!! Monthly Master Class – Episode 1 – Trailer Check out a quick trailer of the […]
How to create animated charts in Power Point [VBA]
This is a guest post by Chirayu, a member of Chandoo.org forum.
Animating Charts in PowerPoint cannot be done without the help of 3rd party software’s that create a flash file of the chart & embed it into the presentation.
However there is a workaround for this. Save your chart as multiple images & insert them (overlapping on top of each other). Use VBA on Developer tab Controls such as Combo Box, Option Button, Check Box etc. to “Bring To Front”” the corresponding image. Thus giving the illusion of an Animated Chart in PowerPoint.
This guide will teach you how to animate the charts, using the three Developer tab Controls that were mentioned before. The code & functionality only works in Slide Show Mode. File must be saved as PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation (*.pptm)