Need to create a simple bar chart with rows of data...

[thp510]

I'm stuck. I have several hundred rows of data with various columns (see example):

[TABLE="width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]Date
[/TD]
[TD]Segment
[/TD]
[TD]Product
[/TD]
[TD]Sales Rep[/TD]
[TD]Region[/TD]
[TD]Sales[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Jan-18[/TD]
[TD]Enterprise[/TD]
[TD]Widget 1[/TD]
[TD]Bob[/TD]
[TD]MW[/TD]
[TD]$500[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Feb-19[/TD]
[TD]SMB[/TD]
[TD]Widget 3[/TD]
[TD]Cindy[/TD]
[TD]NW[/TD]
[TD]$250[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Jun-18[/TD]
[TD]SMB[/TD]
[TD]Widget 3[/TD]
[TD]Suzzie[/TD]
[TD]SE[/TD]
[TD]$1000[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Jan-19[/TD]
[TD]Commercial[/TD]
[TD]Widget 2[/TD]
[TD]Bob[/TD]
[TD]SW[/TD]
[TD]$35[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Mar-18[/TD]
[TD]Enterprise[/TD]
[TD]Widget 1[/TD]
[TD]Bob[/TD]
[TD]SE[/TD]
[TD]$355[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Dec-18[/TD]
[TD]Commercial[/TD]
[TD]Widget 2[/TD]
[TD]Kelly[/TD]
[TD]NE[/TD]
[TD]$535[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

I just want to create a simple bar charts from these several hundred rows. For example, I want to show our total sales over time so that the x-axis is the Date and the y-axis is the $ amounts, Sales. Similarly, I also want to create a bar chart that shows Segment on the x-axis and Sales on the y-axis. I try doing all this by just highlighting the sales column and the date column and inserting a bar chart using the data however it shows a very messy table looking chart instead (it's hard to explain). Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to clean this all up and sum the $ first before going and creating a chart?

 

[Panda514]

Hello,

I'm not sure what you are doing wrong. I copy/pasted your data into excel and it worked perfectly. I highlighted the Column A-Date, held down the Ctrl key and highlighted Column F-Sales, then clicked Insert, then clicked the Bar Chart symbol and I got a simple bar chart that shows Sales on the y axis and Dates on the X axis. I followed the same procedure for the second graph except I highlighted Column B-Segment first and then column F-Sales.