To create a true histogram from frequency information, you need to make the columns in the chart touch each other. This was difficult to do in Excel 2003 but much easier in Excel 2007. Episode 606 shows you how.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast. I'm Bill Jelen.
Well you know in yesterday's podcast I showed how to create a pivot table to create a frequency chart and right at the end, I created the frequency chart, but didn't bother to tell you how to basically create a histogram.
That's where all the columns touch.
This is an interesting one. We haven't switched over to excel 2007 for a long time.
It'd be interesting to show in both 2003 and 2007. To show how they actually solve this problem very simply in excel 2007.
But it's also interesting every time that I do a seminar. I know I'm in front of a hundred people I say.
Hey, how many people have switched to excel 2007?
and last February or March it would be one or two out of a hundred.
Last week at the boot camp, there were about thirty percent of the folks that had switched to 2007 and I'm starting to hear very large companies that are switching. So we're starting to see this shift.
I think once the service pack 1 comes out in Q1 of 2008, we're really going to see a lot of people start to adopt the new version of excel.
Now that's interesting even if you say, I'm not going to upgrade or my company's not going to upgrade, you're going to start seeing people sending you documents in the new file Format xlsm or Xlsx, and you're going to have to be able to deal with that.
If you have 2003 or 2002 there's a free converter otherwise, you're going to have to create or get those people to save the file the old way.
So let's take a quick look at how to create a frequency histogram.
I've created the chart already.
So back in Excel 2003, it was very difficult. We had to right click on one of the bars and choose "Format Data Series" and then go to the "Options" tab, the last tab where there's something called "Gap width" and we basically kick the "Gap width" down to 0.
And once we get down to 0 then all of those columns will actually touch.
Who would ever think of looking there to solve this problem.
Well on excel 2007, when we have the exact same chart, there's actually a setting now under "Chart Layouts" where they've said we're going to create a histogram out of this data.
So basically you open the "Menu" choose "Histogram" and it then jams everything together for you.
You don't have to go into the "Series" options, don't have to remember where that setting is.
It's just basically right here on one of their 12 or this Case 11, built-in layouts for the column chart.
So hey, there you have it.
Thanks for stopping by. I will see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Well you know in yesterday's podcast I showed how to create a pivot table to create a frequency chart and right at the end, I created the frequency chart, but didn't bother to tell you how to basically create a histogram.
That's where all the columns touch.
This is an interesting one. We haven't switched over to excel 2007 for a long time.
It'd be interesting to show in both 2003 and 2007. To show how they actually solve this problem very simply in excel 2007.
But it's also interesting every time that I do a seminar. I know I'm in front of a hundred people I say.
Hey, how many people have switched to excel 2007?
and last February or March it would be one or two out of a hundred.
Last week at the boot camp, there were about thirty percent of the folks that had switched to 2007 and I'm starting to hear very large companies that are switching. So we're starting to see this shift.
I think once the service pack 1 comes out in Q1 of 2008, we're really going to see a lot of people start to adopt the new version of excel.
Now that's interesting even if you say, I'm not going to upgrade or my company's not going to upgrade, you're going to start seeing people sending you documents in the new file Format xlsm or Xlsx, and you're going to have to be able to deal with that.
If you have 2003 or 2002 there's a free converter otherwise, you're going to have to create or get those people to save the file the old way.
So let's take a quick look at how to create a frequency histogram.
I've created the chart already.
So back in Excel 2003, it was very difficult. We had to right click on one of the bars and choose "Format Data Series" and then go to the "Options" tab, the last tab where there's something called "Gap width" and we basically kick the "Gap width" down to 0.
And once we get down to 0 then all of those columns will actually touch.
Who would ever think of looking there to solve this problem.
Well on excel 2007, when we have the exact same chart, there's actually a setting now under "Chart Layouts" where they've said we're going to create a histogram out of this data.
So basically you open the "Menu" choose "Histogram" and it then jams everything together for you.
You don't have to go into the "Series" options, don't have to remember where that setting is.
It's just basically right here on one of their 12 or this Case 11, built-in layouts for the column chart.
So hey, there you have it.
Thanks for stopping by. I will see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
