Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2018

Free Excel Webinar Recording – Excel Yourself 2018

Feedback score 89%

In December 2018 I reviewed four of my articles from the INTHEBLACK magazine from 2018. Download the materials using the button below and watch the video.

Webinar Materials

Includes extra content not included in the magazine.

This year’s smorgasbord webinar includes

how to handle validations
dynamically highlighting the current row in a table (uses a macro)
centralising logic – how and why to do it – alternatives to the IF function
creating a slope chart (includes a macro to speed up the process)

As always there will be a few more tips and tricks shared in the session.

Free Excel Webinar Recording – Keyboard Shortcuts October 18, 2018
Free Excel Webinar Recording – What If Techniques September 28, 2018
Free Excel Webinar Recording – Conditional Formatting August 23, 2018
Free Excel Webinar Recording – Copy and Paste Tips and Tricks June 14, 2018
An Easier Step Chart July 24, 2018

Posted on Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Creating a Timeline Chart in Excel 2016

Error Bars plus a new feature

Timeline charts are an effective way to display events over time. You can use a new Excel 2016 feature to easily create a timeline chart.

Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Horizontal or Vertical Progress Bar in Excel

Conditional Format or Sparkline take your pick

In a recent webinar on conditional formatting I was demonstrating how to create a horizontal progress bar using conditional formats when someone asked an interesting question about creating a vertical progress bar. It is possible and in this blog post I will explain both techniques.

Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Adding a Vertical Dotted Line to an Excel Line Chart

An error bar solution

When plotting Actuals and Forecasts on a single line chart you may want to use a vertical dotted line to identify where the Actuals finish and the Forecasts begin.

Posted on Tuesday, July 24, 2018

An Easier Step Chart

A Line chart solution

Here’s another way to create a Step Chart. This one is quicker. I wrote previously about using a scatter plot and error bars but it required a lot of chart changes. This one hacks a line chart and requires no chart changes.

Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2018

TreeMap a new chart in Excel 2016

A square pie chart

The TreeMap is like a square pie chart, but it has the added ability to show a hierarchy.

Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Step Charts in Excel

Hacking the error bars

The Step chart is not a standard Excel chart but it is a useful way to display values over time. You have probably seen a step chart but you may not have known what it was called. It sort of looks like the city skyline or something you would create on an Etch-a-Sketch.

Posted on Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Pie Charts and Negatives – an Alternative

A waterfall solution

Pie charts have a lot of drawbacks and limitations. One major limitation is they can’t handle negatives. One of Excel’s new charts can help out.

Posted on Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Naming Charts in Excel

Two techniques

You may have noticed that Excel gives every chart a unique number when it creates the chart. It is displayed in the Name Box in the left corner above the grid. You have the ability to change that name and make it more descriptive.

Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Stop Charts Resizing

Works with other graphic objects like text boxes

We’ve all been there, our charts are looking just right and then some one inserts a column or changes the column width and throws out all our perfectly proportioned charts.

Posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Hide and Seek with Excel Charts

Hiding rows and columns

Charts have a behaviour that many people don’t realise. That behaviour can also be turned off. If you hide a row or column in the data range used by a chart, the values will also be hidden on the chart.

Posted on Monday, October 31, 2016

Chart Suggestions

When less is more

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. This applies to many thing in Excel and especially to charts. With charts the “less is more” philosophy works well. Have a look at the four charts in the image below.

Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Power BI – A Chart

The ultimate goal

Dashboard Charts are the ultimate goal of most Power BI reports, so let’s dive in.

Posted on Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Show Horizontal Axis Entries Below the Chart

Great for displaying negatives in a line or column chart

I learned about a chart Axis option in Excel during a recent webinar – thanks to one of the attendees. You can show the Axis entries below the chart – this is handy for column charts that display negatives.

Posted on Friday, July 1, 2016

When a Bar Chart is Better

Before and after charts

I was reading a magazine last week and a chart caught my eye. I thought I could improve it. I recreated it in Excel – its close to the original – see below – I didn’t quite match the column colour.

Posted on Thursday, February 4, 2016

Excel Variance Analysis

An alternative charting technique

It is common in accounting to compare numbers. Either Actuals vs Budget or this year vs last year. There are different charts that people use for this comparison. How about plotting the variance instead?

Posted on Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Horizontal bullet chart in Excel

Excel Yourself article

Check out my follow up article and VIDEO on the ITBDigital website on how to convert a vertical bullet chart into a horizontal one.

Click here for full article and video.

For the original bullet chart post click here

These techniques are based on ones in the great book
Excel 2007 Dashboards and Reports For Dummies by Michael Alexander


Related Posts

					
			
				Excel Bullet Charts [Video]
			
					
			
				How to Improve an Excel Line Chart [VIDEO]
			
					
			
				Column vs Bar Charts in Excel [VIDEO]
			
					
			
				Re-Sizing Charts In Excel
			
					
			
				Free Excel Webinar Recording – Excel Yourself 2018

Posted on Thursday, July 17, 2014

Excel Bullet Charts [Video]

Excel Yourself Article

Check out my July 2014 article on Bullet charts on the CPA Australia ITBDigital website – click here to see the article. The video is below.

Bullet charts were developed by Stephen Few – see his pdf on bullet charts click here.

The technique is based on one used by Michael Alexander in his great book Excel 2007 Dashboards and Reports for Dummies by Wiley.


Related Posts

					
			
				Horizontal bullet chart in Excel
			
					
			
				How to Improve an Excel Line Chart [VIDEO]
			
					
			
				Column vs Bar Charts in Excel [VIDEO]
			
					
			
				Re-Sizing Charts In Excel
			
					
			
				Free Excel Webinar Recording – Excel Yourself 2018

Posted on Thursday, February 13, 2014

Excel and Grouping

The term grouping in Excel has many different meanings, probably more than any other term in Excel.

Posted on Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Re-Sizing Charts In Excel

How to get identically sized charts

When building dashboards in Excel you frequently need to have multiple charts that are exactly the same size. Luckily Excel makes this reasonably easy to achieve.