Excel Charts [Paperback]

John Walkenbach (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764517643 | ISBN-13: 978-0764517648 | Publication Date: November 5, 2002

* One of the world's best-known Excel experts shows how to master the charting features in Excel 2000 and 2002 to create compelling graphic representations of data
* Covers basic and advanced features, focusing on the new charting featuresprovided in version 2002
* Explains how to select charts for different categories of data, modify data in a chart, deal with missing data, format charts, customize shapes, and give charts a professional look

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a unique, accessible book that conveys a lot of powerful thoughts which can be turned into a great success through careful application..." (M2 Best Books, 26 February 2003)

From the Back Cover

Everything you need to know about
* Creating and formatting high-impact charts for business, science, and education
* Selecting the correct chart for your data
* Customizing your charts with pictures, graphics, and shapes
* Understanding the tricks of the trade that enable you to create "impossible" charts
* Creating easy-to-use interactive charts
* Using VBA to create and modify charts

"Mr. Spreadsheet" Presents the Only Definitive Guide to Excel Charts

If you thought you knew all that Excel can do, think again! In this comprehensive volume, "Mr. Spreadsheet" John Walkenbach begins by explaining Excel's built-in charting basics and goes on to help you master trendlines, AutoShapes, pivot charts, and dozens of other capabilities in both Excel 2000 and 2002. Using his expert techniques as well as his exclusive Power Utility Pak and JWalk Chart Tools, included on the bonus CD-ROM, you'll produce polished, professional charts that demand attention. While Excel books abound, this is the only one devoted solely to the benefits and features of Excel's charting capacity.

"I was astonished by how much I learned from this book - it's a must-read for anyone who wants to explore the full range of Excel charts"
-Jon M. Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP

CD-ROM Includes
* Code, scripts, examples, and all sample charts from the book
* JWalk Chart Tools, an add-in created by the author that comprises six useful chart-related utilities
* Trial version of the author's award-winning Power Utility Pak 5

System Requirements: PC running Windows 98 or later. Microsoft Excel. See the "What's on the CD" Appendix for details and complete system requirements.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 552 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (November 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764517643
• ISBN-13: 978-0764517648
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Walkenbach, a.k.a. Mr. Spreadsheet, is arguably the foremost authority on Excel. His fifty-plus books include Excel 2010 Power Programming with VBA, Excel 2010 Formulas, and the bestselling Excel 2010 Bible, all published by Wiley. He has also written hundreds of articles and created the award-winning Power Utility Pak.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, December 17, 2002

By 

Antonios Giannakas (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excel Charts (Paperback)

If your objective is to master the Charting feature of Excel, I bet that this book will exceed your expectations. Although most the material is advanced every user could benefit (The first Chapter offers a nice introduction to Excel Charts for novices).
Knowledge of formulas and named formulas is necessary for certain examples in the second part of the book. You will be amazed of how many ways there are to customize and improve your charts, you will do things that you never thought possible in Excel. Excel's help file and other books in Excel will never give you the tricks and the work-arounds that you will learn from Walkenbach's book. Some of the most interesting Chart Techniques are :
How to create combination Charts, how to Add a secondary axis,
How to put several Charts on the same Chart Sheet. Scrolling
charts, Self Expanding Charts. Adding Checkboxes to charts. Box
plot and How to plot Mathematical Functions in Excel.
I am sure that you will find many many more useful techniques.

71 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Errors, errors, May 19, 2003

By 

johare "johare4" (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excel Charts (Paperback)

This book allots much space to stuff you find everywhere - what is a pivot table, for example - and on matters of conjecture and taste -does a pie chart "accurately" portray the data, for example. This space could be put to better use.

The section most interesting to me is Chapter 7 (30 pages) - Creating Interactive Charts. Unfortunately, there are errors. Some are only annoying, for example, on p. 213 telling us to enter Sheet1!Dates when the correct entry is =Sheet1!Date (plural is a typo, and no equals sign means no success). Simple errors, but I didn't like trial and error to discover the correct entry.

Other errors are tougher to fix, as on p. 228 where we are told to enter =N(OFFSET(Dates,(ROW(OFFSET($A$1 ... etc)) (I haven't filled in all the line). This procedure doesn't work at all, and an explanation of how it is supposed to work is "beyond the scope of the book". In trying to fix it, I found my own interactive graph that plots every N'th point and automatically adjusts to fit the selected data. Is a thank you in order?

What can you do? Walkenbach explains (p. 327) that changes to a pivot table chart that cause updating mean that all formatting is reverted to default. He also explains that pivot-table xy-charts are not possible, and that efforts to get around this basically are trouble. This may be the most useful part of this book: it tells you what can't be done.

Bottom Line: This book is padded and contains errors that consume much time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stuff I Never Knew, October 23, 2007

By 

C. Elser (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Excel Charts (Paperback)

I've been using Excel to create charts for 20 years and thought I knew a lot about creating and modifying charts. I'm only on Chapter 4 and I've already learned a handful of very helpful hints and tips -- and this is just the chapters that cover the basics. I was planning to skip those chapters because I thought they wouldn't cover anything new. Instead I'm glad I didn't as there are a number of shortcuts I would have never known about. There are great examples and the CD lets you try out the options as they are discussed in the book.