Creating Charts in Excel Creating a Simple Pie Chart In this tutorial, we will use existing tables from which to build a pie chart showing a school s performance on each goal of the math EOG. Open the Sample Data file and select the Sample Data Tables tab to view that worksheet. We will begin by looking at Table F on the worksheet. This table is from a N. C. EOG Goal Summary Report for 3 rd Grade Math. Teachers find it useful to know what percentage of the questions on the test covered each of the 5 goals. We can make a simple pie chart to represent this information. Start by clicking in cell C48 and dragging down and right to cell F52. The data that we will use for the chart is now highlighted. Click on the Insert tab at the top of the screen and select Pie under Chart. Click on the top left option to create a simple two-dimensional pie chart. The chart now appears on the existing worksheet.
To make the chart larger and easier to edit, we will move it to its own spreadsheet. Click on the Move Chart icon at the top right-hand corner of the screen. In the pop-up box, select New sheet and type Item Distribution by Goal in the box to the right to name the new sheet. Click OK. The chart now appears as a full-sized object in its own worksheet. We can now edit the chart to be sure that it is clearly labeled and easy to read. Note that the current chart does not show the actual percentages. Although, the goals represented are shown in the legend, they are hard to see. We can display the percentages and the goal numbers in the chart by selecting the Design Tab and clicking on Layout 1 under Chart Layouts. The goal number now appears along with the percentage in each slice of the pie. The legend disappears as it is no longer needed. To make the labels larger and more visible, right-click to highlight them, change the size to 14 and the style to Bold. You can also change the position of the labels by left-clicking to grab each one in turn and move it to a position nearer the center. Click to select all of the slices. Right-click and select Format Data Series, Border Color, and Solid Line. Click on the small arrow beside the color and choose black. We can also change the title to be more easily understood. Highlight the existing text in the title box and type a new title Distribution of Items by Goal on the 2009 3 rd Grade Math EOG. Suppose that we don t like the color for Goal 2 and wish to change it to yellow. Left-click twice in the Goal 2 area of the chart so that only that slice has handles. Now right-click in that area and select Format Data Point. In the box that now appears, select Fill, Solid Fill, and click on the small arrow beside Color to see the color options. For this example, select yellow under Standard Colors and click Close. Our simple pie chart is now complete.
Creating a Stacked Column Chart Though tables are a good way to examine data, there might be times when a more visual representation will help to promote discussion about the data. In this tutorial, we will use existing tables from which to build a column chart showing a school s performance over time on the EOG. Open the Sample Data file and select the Sample Data Tables tab to view that worksheet. We will begin by looking at Table B on the worksheet. This table shows the distribution of EOG Reading scores over the past 4 years for a fictional school. The reason for creating a chart is that we want to be able to visualize trends in the relative percentages of students at each level from one year to the next. To begin, select the data in the table by left-clicking in cell B12, holding down the button and dragging down and right to cell F16. When you release the mouse button, you should see that this area of the table is highlighted. Now select the Insert tab at the top of the screen by clicking on it. You will see that Excel offers several different types of charts. You should think about the kinds of data you are trying to display when choosing a chart type. Keep in mind that you can change the chart type at any time if you are not satisfied with your original selection. Since we want to show a distribution of the scores of all students each year, we are going to select the 100% Stacked Column for our chart. In the Charts area, select Column by left-clicking once and drag down to 2-D column and across to the 100% stacked option, which is the rightmost of the three shown under this heading. You should now see an initial version of the chart in the spreadsheet. Before we continue to edit our chart, we will move it to its own spreadsheet. Click on the Move Chart icon at the top right-hand corner of the screen. In the pop-up box, select New sheet and type EOG Scores Over Time in the box to the right to name the new sheet. Click OK. The chart now appears as a full-sized object in its own worksheet. As we look at the chart, we see that the years are in the legend, while the achievement levels are along the bottom of the graph. Since this does not show us the change over time we want, we will edit the chart to fix this problem. Rightclicking in the chart area and choose the Select data option from the menu that appears. In the Select Data Source window, click on the Switch Row/Column button and click OK. We now see that each column represents the achievement level data for a given year as we wanted. We need to add titles and labels to our chart to ensure that users can clearly understand what it represents. Notice that a Chart Tools heading now shows at the top of the screen. Under this tab are 3 tabs that contain the options for editing the appearance of our chart. We begin by labeling the vertical axis. Select the Layout tab, click on Axis Titles in the Labels area, select Primary Vertical Axis Title and Rotated Title. A text box now appears to the left of the axis. Type
Percentage of Students in the formula bar and press Enter. We can adjust the font and size as desired by highlighting the axis title box and right-clicking to make selections. In this case, we will change the font size to 14. Next, we will add a title to our chart. We want to be sure to include information in the title to clearly describe the data represented. Click on the Layout tab and choose Chart Title, then the Above Chart option. Type the title into the Title box that now appears at the top of the chart as follows - Chart 1: Achievement Levels Over Time (Press enter to go to the next line) Smallville Elementary School Reading EOG Scores from 2007 2010. Highlight the second line of the title and right-click to re-size the font of the sub-title to 14. Now right-click on the year data labels below the horizontal axis. Select size 14 and Bold for these labels as well. We can make other adjustments to make our chart easier to read. If the vertical axis seems crowded, we can right-click on it and select the Format Axis option. If we want to show the percentages only by units of 20 rather than by tens, we can click Fixed next to Major Unit and change it from 0.1 to 0.2. Click on Close to apply the changes. We can also choose the location of the Legend. Let s place it at the bottom of the graph for easier viewing. Right-click on the legend and select the Format Legend Option. Under Legend Options, select Bottom and click Close. Now right-click on the legend at the bottom and re-size it to 14. To finalize the chart, you might want to change the color scheme or add additional data labels. To change the color for Level 1, right-click on one of the bars and select Format Data Series from the menu that appears. Select Fill, Solid Fill, and click on the small arrow beside Color to see the color options. For this example, select red under Standard Colors and click Close. Repeat this process, changing the colors for each of the other levels to orange, yellow and green respectively. To see the actual percentages represented by each section of a column, right-click in that area and select Data Labels. Once the labels are added, right-click on each and format them to show as Bold and size 12. Our stacked column chart is now complete. You can use the same steps used in creating and editing this chart to create a wide variety of charts that help users to see patterns and trends in your data.
Creating Clustered Column Charts You can use a clustered column chart to compare data that contains more than one set of information across multiple categories. In this tutorial, we will create a clustered column chart and experiment with how this type of chart can be used to represent information from several of our sample data tables. Open the Sample Data file and click on the Sample Data Tables tab to display that worksheet. Look at Table A: Proficiency in 2010. This table compares the distribution of students among the four achievement levels at the school with that state-wide. Click in cell B5 and drag to cell D9 to highlight the headings and data in the table. Note that we have not included the title in the selection. Click on the Insert tab, select the Column Chart icon and drag down to the first 2-D option, the Clustered Column chart. The chart will appear on the worksheet. Note that this chart provides easy comparison of the percentage of students scoring within each achievement level band. Now right-click in the chart area and choose Select Data. In the open dialog box, click the Switch Row/Column button and OK. This new version of the chart provides a comparison of how students are distributed among the four achievement levels in the school and in the state. You may decide to use either one or both of these versions of the chart, depending on the purpose of your data display. We will now use this Clustered Column Chart to view data from another of our sample tables. Right-click in the chart area and again choose the Select Data option. When the dialog box opens, click in cell B12 and drag down to cell F16 and click OK. The table now clusters the data for each achievement level with a bar representing each year. Click Switch Row/Column. This view shows the distribution of achievement levels in the school for each of the past four years. Click OK. You can experiment with this same chart type to show data from Tables C and E. Once you have the chart you want, you can move it to a new sheet and edit it by adding titles and labels as desired. Example of Clustered Column Chart