Datasheet

NOTE
In the first edition of this book, I offered an apology for the relatively poor visual quality
of Excel charts. I’m pleased to be able to retract that apology for the Excel 2007 edition.
The charting feature in Excel 2007 has come a long way, and Excel is now capable of
producing charts with much better visual appeal.
Displaying data in a well-conceived chart can make your numbers more understandable.
Because a chart presents a picture, charts are particularly useful for summarizing a series
of numbers and their interrelationships. Making a chart can often help you spot trends
and patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Figure 1-1 shows a worksheet that contains a simple column chart that depicts a com-
pany’s sales volume by month. Viewing the chart makes it very apparent that sales were off
in the summer months (June through August), but they increased steadily during the final
four months of the year. You could, of course, arrive at this same conclusion simply by
studying the numbers. But viewing the chart makes the point much more quickly.
Figure 1-1: A simple column chart depicts the sales volume for each month.
A column chart is just one of many different types of charts that you can create with Excel.
By the way, creating this chart was simple: I selected the data in A1:B13, and then I
pressed Alt+F1.
ON THE CD
All the charts pictured in this chapter are available in a workbook on the companion
CD-ROM. The file is named introductory examples.xlsx.
How Excel Handles Charts
Before you can create a chart, you must have some numbers — sometimes known as data.
The data, of course, is stored in the cells in a worksheet. Normally, the data that is used by
Part I: Chart Basics
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