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Microsoft Excel charts are a great way to get a picture of your data,
to see trends and other patterns.
But when you want to summarize a trend in a small amount of space,
without a detailed chart, try Sparklines. Hi,
I'm Dawn Bjork, The Software Pro. In this training,
we'll look at how to easily show trends in Excel data with Sparklines.
Sparklines are mini charts that fit inside of one cell.
They give you a quick snapshot of the story your data has to tell.
So you can place them near or even behind the data itself so that they can act
as a handy and tiny reference.
To insert a Sparkline into an Excel worksheet,
first select the range which contains the data you want to graph as
one or more Sparklines.
Unlike with Excel charts, in Sparklines,
we don't include the headings or descriptive labels.
We're simply grabbing the data. Next, let's go to the Insert tab,
and towards the right, you'll see here, Sparklines. Line,
Column, Win or Loss. Now you can still choose these,
even if you haven't yet selected the data. For this, I'll pick Line.
From the dialog box, you'll see the data range.
So this can be something that you can input or select if you haven't already.
Next, we'll choose where we want to see the Sparklines placed.
And for this example,
I'll simply choose a parallel location to the right,
but it could be above or below,
but where do you want to see those Sparklines. And choose OK.
And how we have Sparklines.
These little mini charts can be really handy,
especially if you have many rows of data.
It's that easy. Although it might not be as readable,
you can also place a Sparkline in a cell with data. In that case,
the Sparkline will appear behind the data. Like an Excel chart,
Sparklines will respond to changes you make to the underlying data.
So for instance, if this value is increased,
now the Sparkline adjusts accordingly. Once you create a Sparkline,
you can change the formatting and the appearance of that. First of all,
we want to select our Sparklines.
And you can just select any one of them and Excel will highlight the others.
Next, look for the contextual ribbon tab for Sparkline.
Over to the left-hand side, we can see that we can edit the data.
If we need to adjust that data range,
you can change a different Sparkline type. For instance, to Column.
Win/Loss is specifically designed to track stocks.
So let's stick with our Line for now. And in the ribbon tab,
we have some other options. For instance,
maybe you want to see the High Point and the Low Point.
Additionally, choose some different styles,
perhaps with a different color for those high and low
points.
And you can even get more specific to the Sparkline color.
And even what the marker colors look like.
Here,
we see another example of Sparklines using the column layout.
Where will you use Sparklines to add visual references to your Excel data?
For more tips on being productive with Excel,
or to sign up for my tips newsletter, visit TheSoftwarePro.com/Excel.
If this training was helpful,
please like this video and subscribe to this channel. This is Dawn Bjork,
The Software Pro. Thanks for watching
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