New at Graphs, etc

[RYfromVan]

Hi everyone, first time poster but read the forums often and have learned a lot.
I dont use the graphs, etc in Excel very often

I am trying to find the best way to display this info in a graph (the boss is persistent that it be graphed. I have put in a bar chart, but now they are asking if it "can be aline or something"). I have shown a mockup, but my real data has 6 years and 10 categories.

[TABLE="width: 320"]
<colgroup><col width="64" span="5" style="width:48pt"> </colgroup><tbody>[TR]
[TD="class: xl64, width: 64"][/TD]
[TD="width: 64"]Gidgets[/TD]
[TD="width: 64"]Gadgets[/TD]
[TD="width: 64"]Wazoos[/TD]
[TD="width: 64"]Brain Cells[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl64"]2014[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]2.5%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]3.2%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]5.6%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]6.4%[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl64"]2015[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]2.5%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]3.5%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]8.5%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]24.6%[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl64"]2016[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]1.5%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]-2.0%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]-3.5%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]-4.5%[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl64"]2017[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]6.0%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]5.0%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]5.0%[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]5.0%[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have played around with the various options, and changed the axis, etc but can't find one that doesn't look like a plate of spaghetti...

thanks

 

[sijpie]

I think it is going to be the plate of spagetti. Suggest you make three graphs:
barchart, linegraph, areagraph and show these to various people ncl your boss. See what they like best.

There are some ways to make very smart graphs (see peltier.com) but this is a fairly simple dataset and there are only so many ways in which you can illustrate it.