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Making Excel maps without VBA
If you want to make a choropleth/thematic map in Excel without programming perhaps conditional formatting is all you need. Here is how to do it: Select a few hundred columns and rows; Set width and...
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Strange L-shaped trends
There is not much of a story in the expected evolution of US population, according to the United Nations estimates and projections (1950-2100): (You’ll see in a moment why there is a vertical line in...
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Excel dashboard: Using Excel for catchment area analysis
I’m sure you’re familiar with the Walmart growth map. A basic visualization looks like this: Obviously this has a lot of potential for a more design-oriented approach, and there are many examples...
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Why I don’t like bar charts
Pies charts are fun to use, but it’s almost impossible for grown-ups to find a good reason for using them at work. So your first, safe-for-work choice is a bar chart. The boring bar chart. I don’t like...
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Infographics vs. Data Visualization
People keep asking what the difference is between data visualization and infographics. Since I’m not completely satisfied with the available answers I thought I could return to the subject and write my...
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Chart redraw: Troops Vs. Cost (Time Magazine)
This chart is very similar to the original, published this week in the Time magazine: I don’t like dual-axes charts. Actually, they don’t like themselves and they beg for a connected scatterplot, so...
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A classification of chart types
A few weeks ago, I needed a classification of chart types for my book, and reinventing the wheel was the last thing I wanted to do. I started with Andrew’s classification and the Juice Analytics...
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Easy way to make bullet charts and boxplots in Excel
I am sure I’m missing something here, but I don’t understand why making bullet charts and boxplots have to be so overly complex in Excel. Instead of messing around with bars and scales and secondary...
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For the Greek hairdressers, the party’s over
In the beginning of the Greek debt crisis, Greek hairdressers became one of the symbols of a badly managed country (they could retire at 50 with full benefits). But there is more and more interesting...
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Find the revolution
I have a challenge for you. The chart above displays the evolution of infant mortality rate in Portugal. The years in the x-axis are not labeled on purpose. In one of those years there was a left-wing...
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