Watch out when someone tips a pie chart backwards to show a 3-D perspective. They are either unintentionally or intentionally trying to misrepresent the data. Episode 446 shows you how.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel and Charts and Graphs for Microsoft Office Excel 2007. 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 and Charts and Graphs for Microsoft Office Excel 2007. 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 Mr.. Excel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Once you know I've been working on this new book for Q, Charts and Graphs for Microsoft Excel 2007.
and so, I have all kinds of great chart ideas let me show you an interesting thing that I learned along the way about how people can lie with charts.
Now, one of the types of pie charts you can create is a pie chart that's in 3D, where they actually kind of tip the pie backwards.
I realize this looks pretty cool and usually in my power Excel seminar this is one of the examples that I usually show.
It turns out that when you turn a chart on its side using perspective, the items in the front of the chart appear much larger than the items in the back of the chart.
I have two charts here today that show the exact same data but, they're formatted in slightly different ways.
In this case we are looking at a breakout of product costs laborers 29 percent and everything else, material and overhead is 71 percent.
If you're trying to make it look like, the labor costs are not a big factor at all.
You want to rotate that slice of the pie so that way the labor is in the back.
Anything, that's in the back of the pie chart doesn't look as large.
I'll scroll down here to the other chart and move the labor around to the front it turns out that slice of the pie, the red slice has over twice as many pixels as the blue slice in the top chart everything else is the same exact same plot size.
But, by moving it around to the front we make that appear much much larger.
Now, I'm not advocating that you lie with the chart.
But, just realize that if you're sitting in a presentation, and someone is showing you a pie chart that's tipped on its side whatever, is in the front is going to look a lot larger.
Now, the way to rotate a pie chart, first you want to click on the entire pie and then right click and choose Format Data Series.
There's a third tab the Options tab that's only there for pie and donut charts and you can change the angle of first slice.
This will actually rotate the pie arround at any angle that you like moving things from the front or the back.
Hey, there, you have it.
Make sure that no one is lying to you the next time they show you a 3D pie chart.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Once you know I've been working on this new book for Q, Charts and Graphs for Microsoft Excel 2007.
and so, I have all kinds of great chart ideas let me show you an interesting thing that I learned along the way about how people can lie with charts.
Now, one of the types of pie charts you can create is a pie chart that's in 3D, where they actually kind of tip the pie backwards.
I realize this looks pretty cool and usually in my power Excel seminar this is one of the examples that I usually show.
It turns out that when you turn a chart on its side using perspective, the items in the front of the chart appear much larger than the items in the back of the chart.
I have two charts here today that show the exact same data but, they're formatted in slightly different ways.
In this case we are looking at a breakout of product costs laborers 29 percent and everything else, material and overhead is 71 percent.
If you're trying to make it look like, the labor costs are not a big factor at all.
You want to rotate that slice of the pie so that way the labor is in the back.
Anything, that's in the back of the pie chart doesn't look as large.
I'll scroll down here to the other chart and move the labor around to the front it turns out that slice of the pie, the red slice has over twice as many pixels as the blue slice in the top chart everything else is the same exact same plot size.
But, by moving it around to the front we make that appear much much larger.
Now, I'm not advocating that you lie with the chart.
But, just realize that if you're sitting in a presentation, and someone is showing you a pie chart that's tipped on its side whatever, is in the front is going to look a lot larger.
Now, the way to rotate a pie chart, first you want to click on the entire pie and then right click and choose Format Data Series.
There's a third tab the Options tab that's only there for pie and donut charts and you can change the angle of first slice.
This will actually rotate the pie arround at any angle that you like moving things from the front or the back.
Hey, there, you have it.
Make sure that no one is lying to you the next time they show you a 3D pie chart.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
