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About this lesson

Selecting a data range and representing it as a chart within a spreadsheet.

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Creating Charts
Link Creating Charts Solution
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Quick reference

Creating Charts

Charts are a useful way to visually represent your data.

When to use

When you need to see a visual representation of your data.

Instructions

Create a chart

  • Organize your data the way you want it to be represented in the chart
  • Select the data you want to include in the chart
  • Click the “Chart” button on the toolbar
  • Choose the type of chart from “Recommendations” or “Chart types”
  • Choose how the data appears using the check boxes
    • Aggregate column: Display all of the cells in that column
    • Switch rows/columns: Switch which column is used in the x axis
    • Use row as headers: Labels the data using the first row
    • Use column as labels: Use this column as the x axis
  • Edit the labels and format of the chart in “Customization”
  • Click “Insert”

Chart options

  • Advanced edit - Open chart window and modify chart
  • Delete chart - Delete chart
  • Save image - Download the chart as a “.png” file
  • Publish chart - Share the chart on the internet
  • Copy chart - Copy the chart
  • Move to own sheet - Give the chart its own sheet
  • Alt text - Create a description of the chart for people whose device can’t display it
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  • 00:05 A very powerful way to view your data within a spreadsheet is by
  • 00:09 creating a chart, something more visually stimulating.
  • 00:12 Something that can express your ideas or
  • 00:15 see your data in a more visual, and often, a more compelling light.
  • 00:20 So let's take a look at how we can create a chart within Google Sheets.
  • 00:25 Let's say I'd like to see a representation
  • 00:27 of how many units have been sold by region.
  • 00:30 Well, in this case, I am going to select both the region and the units.
  • 00:35 I'm gonna select the cells that I would like included within my chart.
  • 00:40 Now, I also have my representatives and
  • 00:42 I have my items selected here as well, that's okay.
  • 00:46 As you will see as we select our charts, we can choose which data is shown or
  • 00:51 which data is represented within that particular chart.
  • 00:55 Next, we wanna go to our toolbar, and we're gonna select the Insert chart icon.
  • 01:02 You will see that a new chart, which really displays as a new
  • 01:06 image within the sheet, appears directly over top of your table.
  • 01:10 That's all right cuz we do have the ability to drag
  • 01:13 this particular image anywhere that we would like within this sheet.
  • 01:17 So by default,
  • 01:19 it has given me a bar chart here of all the data that has been selected.
  • 01:24 And on the bottom axis, you can see I have West, West,
  • 01:28 Central, East, I have all the individual items listed here.
  • 01:32 On the left-hand side, we can see the quantity, or the number of units.
  • 01:38 Now, this isn't exactly what I was looking for
  • 01:41 because I'd really like to have all of my East shown in a single bar,
  • 01:46 all of my Central, and all of my West shown in individual bars.
  • 01:51 So I can compare them across their regions.
  • 01:54 So to do so, on the right-hand side we have two options, DATA and CUSTOMIZE.
  • 02:01 In the DATA section, we can chose what type of chart we would like to look at.
  • 02:05 Here we are viewing a bar chart.
  • 02:08 We can also make other options as if we need to change the data range,
  • 02:13 which is selected and the x-axis and other labels within our chart.
  • 02:19 But I'm gonna go all the way down to the very bottom.
  • 02:22 And what I wanna select is Aggregate column B.
  • 02:26 And by doing so,
  • 02:27 it is going to bring my different regions, it's going to combine them together.
  • 02:32 This is exactly what I was looking for.
  • 02:35 Now, I can clearly see that both the East and
  • 02:39 Central sales units are by far outperforming the West unit here.
  • 02:45 And I may wanna be able to present this in an upcoming meeting, or
  • 02:48 perhaps I wanna take this image and put it in a report.
  • 02:52 But something that I think might be even more powerful
  • 02:55 is if I represent this as a pie chart.
  • 02:59 So I'm gonna go back to my DATA menu here, and under Chart type,
  • 03:03 I'm gonna select the drop down area.
  • 03:06 And here you can see I have a variety of different charts to choose from.
  • 03:10 I'm gonna scroll down to the pie chart area, I'm gonna select this one here.
  • 03:15 And now, I've got a nice, concise view of my sales performance by region.
  • 03:23 And I've got the West up here as a slice, and we can see Central and East.
  • 03:27 I even have the percentage of this pie displayed as well.
  • 03:32 Now, if you'd like to add even more detail or information to your chart,
  • 03:37 you can select the CUSTOMIZE heading here under the Chart editor.
  • 03:42 Here, we can change some of the styles of the chart,
  • 03:45 we can also add a different title for our chart as well.
  • 03:50 Let's go down to the chart and access titles, and let's give this a chart,
  • 03:54 I'm gonna say, Sales performance by region.
  • 04:00 And now, you can see I have that title listed at the very top of my chart image.
  • 04:06 So we can take this image and we can bring it into other sheets.
  • 04:11 We can download it to our own computer if we'd like, if we'd like to save it and
  • 04:15 use it in other documents.
  • 04:18 And we can continue to play around with the labels, with the colors, and
  • 04:23 create the chart that we need based on our spreadsheet data.

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