Creating Data Visualizations in Microsoft Excel

Introduction
The world we live in is run by numbers. Nearly every job or internship in a technical field involves
working with some amount of data. Data can be intimidating, but there are countless tools that make
manipulating data and creating visualizations (graphs and charts) incredibly easy. One of these tools is
Microsoft Excel, which is designed to accommodate data sets of nearly any size and is very helpful for
creating data visualizations. Whether for a report, assignment, or just for fun, data visualizations are
incredibly useful for supporting claims and can greatly enhance any project.

Materials
• A computer
• A data set
• Microsoft Excel
• Time: 10-20 minutes

Instructions
1. Load your data set into Microsoft Excel.

Note: This is assuming you already have a data set in mind you would like to investigate. If you
need to find a data set, websites like kaggle.com and data.gov have tons of free data sets
available for download.

2. Make sure your data set is free of errors and has consistent formatting. Otherwise many of your
visualizations will not turn out as planned. Figure 1 shows a data table that is imperfect and
inconsistent in many ways, while the data table in Figure 2 is ready for analysis. Your data set
will need to be clean and consistent (like Figure 2) in order to proceed past this point.

Figure 1. An untidy data table. Figure 2. A tidy data table.

 Note: Before going any further, it is necessary to understand the vocabulary associated with
data tables. Data tables are composed of observations (rows, in this case they are individual
people) and variables (columns). Variables in a data set can be either quantitative or categorical.
Quantitative variables are made up of numeric values while categorical variables are not.

In this sample data set, the quantitative variables are ‘Age,’ ‘Height,’ and ‘Siblings,’ and the
categorical variables are ‘ID,’ ‘Sex,’ and ‘Eye Color.’ Be careful to note that although ‘ID’ seems
like it should be quantitative, it is actually categorical since it is just an arbitrary number
assigned to participants. Many people would not even consider ‘ID’ to be a variable at all.

3. Now we are ready to create our visualization. To begin this process:

a. Select the ‘Insert’ tab (highlighted in yellow on Figure 3)
b. Click on the icon above ‘PivotChart’ (near the blue arrow on Figure 3) located near the
right of the ‘Charts’ section, which will open a dialog box

Figure 3. Microsoft Excel ‘Insert’ Toolbar.

Note: There are other ways to create a chart in Excel other than using the ‘PivotChart’ option,
but PivotCharts are the most versatile and are the easiest for beginners to work with.

4. With the ‘Create PivotTable’ dialog box open, select your entire data frame by clicking on a
corner cell (‘ID’ for example) with your cursor and dragging to the opposite corner. Figure 4
shows what the screen should look like once this is done.

Figure 4. PivotTable Dialog Box.

 Note: The only option you may want to change on the dialog box is ‘Choose where you want the
PivotChart to be placed,’ which will either be in a new worksheet or in a location on an existing
worksheet. (It is helpful to think of worksheets as tabs on a web browser.) It does not matter
which option you choose here, but for this example we will keep it in the same worksheet.

5. After selecting your data frame, click the ‘OK’ option on the dialog box. This will open a new
dialog box titled ‘PivotChart Fields’ on the right side of the screen, as seen in Figure 5. This
location is where the rest of the design will take place.

Figure 5. PivotChart Screen.

6. Now it is time to select the variables you wish to create your visualization with. It becomes very
hard to create a graphic with more than 2 or 3 variables, so for this example I will choose ‘Sex’
and ‘Eye Color.’ To do this, click on the checkboxes in the box on the right as seen in Figure 6.

Note: Obviously you will choose your own variables for this, but PivotCharts work best with a
maximum of one quantitative variable. If you wish to use multiple quantitative variables, I
recommend creating a scatter plot or line graph directly from ‘Charts.’
 Figure 6. Selected PivotChart Variables.

7. Once this is done, it is time to drag your variables into the correct fields in the ‘PivotChart Fields’
dialog box based. Figure 7 shows how I’ve placed my variables into their appropriate fields
based on what I wanted my graph to look like. I chose to use ‘Eye Color’ for my categories since I
wanted to see the dispersion of each type of color. For values, I chose ‘Sex’ because I wanted to
see how many people had each eye color. I also chose ‘Sex’ to be the legend so I could display
males and females side-by-side in order to see how their distributions compare. Again, all this
was done by dragging the variables to their respective fields, as shown by the arrows in Figure 7.
Figure 8 shows the graph that was generated from these parameters.

Figure 8. Rough Data Visualization.

Figure 7. Drag PivotChart Fields.

 Note: This step in the process may contain a lot of trial and error in moving your variables
around to different fields in order to create an aesthetically pleasing chart. Try experimenting
with different variables for your categories, values, and legend to see what looks good.

8. At this point, all that is left to do is put the finishing touches on the visualization. This could
include things like adding a title, labels, or changing the color of the bars. To do this, click on the
visualization so that you can see white dots around the perimeter. Figure 9 shows what you can
add by selecting the plus sign, while you can change the style or color of the graph by clicking on
the paintbrush. Feel free to add as many or as few chart elements as you please.

Figure 9. Adding Chart Elements.

Note: If you choose to add a chart title or axis titles, you will have the opportunity to rename
these labels according to whatever suits your graph.

9. The final step to complete is exporting your visualization if you wish to use it in another
document. This can be done by right-clicking on the chart and selecting ‘Copy,’ which will copy it
to your clipboard and allow you to paste it to your destination.

Note: If you wish to save your visualization to your computer, it will be easiest to use the
Snipping Tool on Windows or the Grab tool on Mac to accomplish this.

Conclusion
Hopefully at this point you feel comfortable creating your own data visualizations in Microsoft Excel. If
this tutorial was easy for you or you wish to create more complex graphs, try using a different statistical
software such as R, Minitab, or Tableau. Any visualizations are a great tool for use in all kinds of
presentations, as they can help you showcase your evidence in a way that isn’t possible with plain text.
And as numbers continue to become ever more prevalent in the world we live in, being able to construct
informative graphs and charts is an incredibly valuable skill to possess. Thanks for reading!

Warning: Be sure to never misrepresent or falsify data in order to support a claim, as these are ethical
liabilities that must be avoided. Also, be careful not to publish or misuse sensitive data, such as personal
information about clients or consumers, unless you are absolutely positive you are permitted to do so.