Add Low-Overwhelm Context to Your Line Charts
The data you display in charts often takes on new meaning when you display it in the context of other data.
One way to add...
Add Some Style to Your Tables in Excel Reports
Excel tables in reports have always been difficult for me to format professionally. So every once in a while, I experiment with them.
The two...
Calculate Mortgage Payments and Your ROA with an Excel CalcPlot Chart
An Excel CalcPlot Chart allows you to plot values in three dimensions, not merely two. Here are two examples.
Mortgage Paments
Mortgage interest rates are at...
Chart Recessions and Other Boolean Conditions in Excel
I doubt you’ve seen an Excel chart like this before. It shows multiple Boolean conditions that might affect the trend in the annual Rate...
Show Top and Bottom Results in a Chart-Table
The workbook that supports the following figure does a lot of work!
First, it uses Power Query to download the weekly unemployment claims and the...
How to Remove a Speed Bump From Your Excel Charts
Because managers need QUICK insight, we should remove as many speed bumps as possible from our reports and analyses.
The following figure with two Excel...
Dashboard-Like Excel Charts of International Consumer Confidence
The following Excel figure displays its charts in a dashboard-like format. At least, it's in a format that dashboards should use!
When you use simple...
Professional Quality Excel Chart Labels, Legends, and Colors
The following Excel chart shows that Excel really CAN generate professional-quality chart figures.
Here are some general strategies to consider…
1. Set up your data-plumbing correctly....
Excel Bar Charts with Economic Indicators
The Excel figure below shows three indicators of the US economy. Two show economic improvements and one doesn't.
The Excel Perspective
Using column charts rather than...
US National Financial Conditions Using Excel Panel Charts
I’ll explain the meaning of this chart figure shortly. But first, let’s look at it from an Excel perspective.
(Note: I’ve begun to use economic...
Latest Articles
Getting Radical with Excel
It's time to think about Excel in a radical new way—when we use it to work with business or economic data.
It's time, in fact,...
How Fast Is Too Fast?
(Originally published in Inc Magazine.)
What typically tops the list of worries of the chief executive officers of fast growing companies? Financing that growth, according...
How to Smooth Data by Using the TREND Function
Years ago, I read that Prof. William S. Cleveland had suggested that data could be smoothed by calculating a centered trendline through adjacent data—a...
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