|
|
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of flying out of Chicago's O'Hare airport. I was checking in at the ungodly hour of 6 AM on a Sunday, and hoped that would be a quiet time at the airport. The streets near the downtown hotel were almost empty, so that was encouraging, but the closer the taxi got to the airport, the busier things got. Not a good sign! There was no line at the Air Canada counter (woohoo!), but there was no counter agent either. He showed up a couple of minutes later, and that part of the process went quickly. (The same guy showed up at the gate later, to take our tickets, and attached the jetway to the airplane when it arrived. I figured he'd fly the plane too, but he didn't!) Then, it was on to the dreaded security checkpoint, and the inevitable long wait.
Continue reading Airport Security Times in Excel Box Plot
If you're doing Excel training, or writing blog posts, or creating sample files, you might need to find some public data to use in your Excel file. You don't want to publish confidential client data, even if it's a bit disguised, or reveal your household finances to the world.
Instead of creating sample data on your own, you can find datasets online. Once source is Google Public Data Explorer (part of Google Labs), where you can access several large datasets, and use those in your Excel example files
When you follow the links to the dataset pages, you'll find interactive charts and maps, and links to the source data websites.
Source Data Pages
Of course, each source data website is set up differently, but on some of the source data websites, you'll find more charts and interactive tables, and files that you can download.
Sample Excel Data for
Continue reading Sample Data to Use in Excel
"In the back of my mind, I always knew that charts would help me," says the market researcher in this promotional video from 1982. Wow, did you really have to wait weeks for your data processing department to make your charts, back in the old days?
The graphs haven't changed much in the 28 years since this video, Introduction to Business Graphics, was filmed, but at least the presentation technology has improved. Do you remember using those gigantic overhead projectors, and scrambling to get your transparencies ready in time for the meeting?
Apparently Apple Business Graphics wasn't quite as popular as Excel though, because the announcer boasted that it was currently being used in "over 6000 offices".
If you want to make your Excel charts look like they were made in 2010, instead of 1982, see the Excel Charting tutorials on Jon Peltier's blog. He sells some Excel charting utilities
Continue reading Introduction to Business Graphics 1982
Sometime in the 1840s, probably because of the famine, my dad's ancestors left Ireland, and boarded a ship to Canada. The details are sketchy, but I'm sure they had first class accommodations, and sat at the Captain's table every night.
So, in honour of those ancestors, and to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I've made an Excel chart that represents the Flag of Ireland. Chandoo suggested that we create our country's flag in Excel, and I decided that the tri-colour flag of Ireland would be much easier than Canada's Maple Leaf flag.
How To Make the Flag
Have you tried to make your country's flag? To make the Flag of Ireland, I did the following:
typed 100 in three cells on the worksheet made a column chart from that data. set the gap width to zero, to remove the space between the columns selected each column individually, and changed
Continue reading Excel Go Brach – Excelebrations
Rumours say that the late night TV schedule on NBC will change. Jay Leno will leave his 10 PM spot, and return to 11:35 PM. How long will the revised Leno show be, and what effect will it have on the rest of the schedule?
I'll bet the NBC programming executives have set up an Excel worksheet to test the possible scenarios, and they made a nice Gantt chart to show the results.
The Late Night Schedules
Just in case those executives need a bit of help, I set up a sample worksheet for them. At the top, I entered a list of the current shows, with their duration in hours and minutes.
I entered Jan 1, 2010 10:00 PM as the start date and time for the first show. It doesn't matter what date you use, but you need to include one so the chart will work correctly. Then,
Continue reading Leno and Conan Excel Gantt Chart
Happy New Year! All the best in 2010, and I hope you're looking forward to the release of Office 2010.
I thought about creating some fireworks in Excel, then discovered that Andy Pope already made some, based on an xy scatter chart. Here's a screen shot that shows one of the bursts. And there's no noise, so if your head hurts a little today, the fireworks won't make it worse.
Andy also has a sample Excel workbook with scrolling text, so you can combine the workbooks to show Happy New Year, and a fireworks display.
_________________
Have you ever made a Polar Chart in Excel? Or are you like me, and only have a vague idea of what a Polar Chart is (or no idea at all)? I've made thousands of Excel charts over the years, but never made a Polar Chart.
Excel MVP, Andy Pope, has just released a new version of his free Polar Chart add-in, and here's an example of the charts it can create.
Andy's add-in looks intriguing, and he carefully explains how it works, and describes all the option settings.
You can download the add-in for Excel 2007 or Excel 2003, and there's also a sample workbook with data.
However, Andy has created this add-in for people who already know what a Polar Chart is, and what it's used for. The only clue as to what a Polar Chart does is in Andy's description of the data, "The data
Continue reading The Perfect Month for a Polar Chart
This week I was travelling, and signs are really important for helping you figure out where you are, and where you should be headed. Whether you're posting street signs, retail signs, or worksheet instructions, try to make them clear and helpful. For example, this sign, in Ottawa, could have given better directional clues. Given the choice between war and civilization, I'd want to choose wisely. A few days later, I saw this produce chart in a grocery store in upper New York state. The colours don't show up here too well, but the chart clearly shows me when the local produce will be available in the store. I hope you like winter squash, if you're shopping now. Another chart showed the local farms, though it's obviously not to scale. Nice to see where the food is coming from though. And this final sign made me laugh. They
Continue reading Grocery Store Charts and Other Signs
|
|
Recent Comments