How to Create Dynamic Chart Legends in Excel
When I saw a chart designed like the ones below in the Wall Street Journal, I knew I had to create one just like...
How to Create Cycle Plots in Excel to Chart Seasonal Sales Data
If your company's sales are seasonable, you've probably seen a chart that looks something like the first one below.
This Excel chart shows the continuous...
How to Create Bullet Graphs to Replace Gauges in Excel
Business presentations desperately need a replacement for dashboard gauges. Gauges consume too much space in a report. They use excessive "chart junk." They're not...
Highlight Normal Results in Line Charts to Make Exceptional Results Stand Out
Line charts that show trends in performance are the most useful type of chart that management reports can contain.
All managers want good performance to...
Good Examples of Bad Charts: Chart Junk from a Surprising Source
For years, I’ve written that we Excel users should create “magazine-quality” charts for our reports and analyses.
However, we must be very careful of the...
Fourteen Ways to Improve Your Monthly Board Reports with the Help of Excel
Board reports should answer four types of questions:
1. What were the significant operating events last month? Are you on target?
2. How has your view...
Five Best Practices in Your Excel Reporting Strategies
Most Excel reports, forecasts, and analyses I've seen in my career could serve as excellent examples of what NOT to do in Excel.
These reports...
Excel Is Great for Business Intelligence!
With the right access to data, Excel can become an outstanding Business Intelligence (BI) system.
Business Intelligence (BI) is the systematic use of information about...
Error Handling in Excel Spreadsheets
It’s virtually guaranteed. If you have a bunch of formulas like this…
M43: =C43/D43
…then the divisor, D43 in this instance, will have a value of...
Document Excel Worksheets with Pictures that Include Row and Column Headings
This image is a picture of a section of an Excel worksheet. Be sure to include pictures like this when you create your own...
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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