What chart type is often chosen to show how the various parts compare to the whole?
EXCEL 2007 Charts: Column, Bar, Pie and LineA. Colin Cameron, Dept. of Economics, Univ. of Calif. - DavisThis January 2009 help sheet gives information on how to construct charts
CHART BASICS Show To create a chart
The main types of chart used in analysis of economcis data are:
It can be useful to first modify the data for better presentation on the chart. For example, for a pie or column chart we may want to order the data by value. Excel defaults usually lead to a chart that is reasonable but still needs customizing.
Then select within the chart that part of the chart you wish to change and right click to obtain the menu for reformatting the chart. In some cases the Chart Tools group with subgroups Design, Layout and Further details are given below. As an example consider categorical data on 1997 U.S. Health Care Expenditures.
To create a column chart from the above
Note that Excel uses the first series (Category) for the x-axis labels and the second series (Expenditures) for the y-axis values. COLUMN CHARTS: CUSTOMIZING The resulting column chart is basically okay but prettier with a better chart title and the legend entry dropped.
PIE CHARTS To create a pie chart from the above
PIE CHARTS: CUSOMIZINGThe resulting pie chart lacks al the category names and it might be helpful to include the percentage breakdown. To get all category names
To get the percentage breakdown
Select close and we obtain
LINE CHARTS The line chart is not really helpful for categorical data as above. We consider monthly data on the total return from the Standard and Poors 500 stock index (with reinvestment of dividends) from 1970 to 1988. Here the months of 1970 are 1970 (Jan), 1970.08 (Feb), 1978.17 (March), 1978.25 (April), ... To create a line chart from the above
LINE CHARTS: CUSTOMIZINGThe x-axes for this chart is the row number, not the date. To change to the date:
Choose Select Data to get the following dialog box
Then click on Edit to get the following dialog box
Finally
The displayed dates can be reduced to whole numbers
A horiiontal axis can be added by
A vertical axis can similarly be added, where we ultimately select Rotated Axis. We obtain
See Excel 2007: Formatting, Saving, Printing and Copying Results
To resize the chart
To reposition a chart
To remove a chart from a worksheet
What type of chart graph is best to compare parts to a whole?a Pie Chart. Pie charts are best to use when you are trying to compare parts of a whole. They do not show changes over time.
Which type of chart can show the parts of a whole?A pie chart shows a static number and how categories represent part of a whole — the composition of something. A pie chart represents numbers in percentages, and the total sum of all segments needs to equal 100%.
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