Three Excel Tips in One: How to Help Readers Interpret Chart Trends Correctly, Using High-Quality, Dynamic Text
by Charley Kyd on June 2, 2012
In a chart of business performance, an upward-sloping line could indicate good news or bad.
If the chart shows profits or sales, an upward-sloping line is good news. But if the chart shows expenses or measures about problem areas, an upward-sloping line, or a rising series of column plots, shows us bad news.
So when a report includes a mix of such charts, how can we help readers to interpret each chart trend quickly and correctly?
The Wall Street Journal uses indicators like the ones shown here. And you can add similar indicators to your own chart figures…if you know three tips.
At first glance, the solution looks obvious. This obvious solution uses two of my three tips. Both of them also work in Excel 2003. But because the third tip only works with New Excel (Excel 2007 and after), I’ll discuss only that program.
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Tagged as: anti-aliasing, charts, dashboards, dynamic text boxes, text boxes, The Wall Street Journal, vertical text
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