Blog of Calc LLC

In this tutorial we will make an area chart like this: Area chart is a close variant of line chart. Area chart also shows trend over time. Area chart shadow the area under lines to emphasize size of the magnitude. Suppose the following data shows revenue and expense of a person for each month of the last year. 1. Select the data. On menu click Insert > Charts. Ignore the chart type recommended by Google Sheets, under Chart type, select Area chart. 2. Now you have an area chart. The blue area shows revenue. The red area shows expense. The orange area shows expenses were higher than revenue in March and December. Stacked area chart  Depending on the purpose of your analysis, you may choose stacked area chart instead of the regular area chart. Stacked area chart shows sum of data series at each time point. For example, if a company sells its product to US and Canada market, the sales data for each month is below. Select the data. On menu click Insert > Charts . For chart type, ...

In this tutorial we will show you how to make a timeline chart. Timeline chart is a type of line chart, but more interactive. Here is the data. Assume a teacher records student attendance for 7 days, and make a note for some days. The data is below. 1. Select the data, including all the 3 columns. On the menu, click Insert > Charts . Ignore the chart type recommended by Google Sheets, change chart type to Timeline chart . 2. You get a timeline chart. Notice the notes are also shown on the chart for corresponding days.  3. You can change the number of days by sliding the bars at the bottom of the chart. If you click "max" on the top, it will show all the days again.

In this tutorial we will create a table chart like this. This chart looks very much like a regular sheet. The are two differences between a table chart and a regular sheet. First, a table chart can be easily sorted. If you click on a column header, you can sort the values easily. Second, when there are a large number of rows, you can scroll up or down within the chart. Let's see how to create a table chart. 1. Suppose you run a grocery store. Here are your products, quantity and unit price. Select the data, on the menu click Insert > Charts .  2. Under Chart types , go to Other , then select Table chart . 3. You get a plain table chart, which looks almost same as a regular sheet except the format is different. 4. Click the chart, then double click a column header, then you can sort any column.

Scorecard is very useful when building a dashboard containing the key performance indicators (KPIs). In this tutorial we will build a scorecard chart like below: Suppose the total revenue is $1200, like below. 1. Do NOT select any data. Click an empty cell. Then on the menu, click Insert > Charts. A blank chart with "No data" is shown. 2. Change the chart type to scorecard. 3. Click the Key Value field 4. Select the value containing $1200.  5. Now you get a cool scorecard. However, when you show this scorecard to your audience, they may not know what this $1200 means. We need to add a title to the chart. 6. Right click the chart, under Chart & axis titles, click Chart title. 7. Enter "Total Revenue". 7. Now you get a pretty cool scoreboard chart!

In this tutorial we will create a histogram like below. Histogram is commonly used in statistics to show data distribution. Suppose you go fishing today and today is your lucky day. You got 10 fishes! You measured length of each and get a data like below: 1. Click Insert > Charts. Google Sheets automatically generate a histogram chart for you. Very smart. 2. There is no vertical axis label, which may be hard to read for your audience, so we want to add a vertical axis title. Right click the chart, select Chart & axis titles, then Vertical axis title. 3. Fill "Number of fishes" in the Title text field.  4. Now the vertical axis title is added. The chart reads this way: there are 2 fishes whose length is between 13.0 and 14.1 cm, 3 fishes whose length is between 14.1 and 15.2 cm, etc.

Candlestick charts are commonly used to show stock prices. In this tutorial we will create a candlestick chart like this: Suppose the stock price data is like below. Remember the first column has to be text. If this not text, format it as text. The stock price data has to be in the order of Low-Open-Close-High, which is different from Excel. If your data is not in this order, rearrange them now.  1. Click Insert > Charts. Ignore the recommended chart types. Change the chart type to Candlestick chart. 2. Now we get a candlestick chart. It is not very pretty though. 3. Right click the chart. Under Axis, choose Vertical axis.  4. Set the Min to 5. 5. Now we have a pretty candlestick chart. The blue candles are the days when close prices are higher than open prices. The white candles are the days when close prices are lower than open prices.

Suppose there are 5 academic subjects in a class which are English, math, science, music and art. You have the scores of Alice and Bob like below. You can use radar chart to compare their academic performance. The data is below. 1. Select the data. Click Insert > Charts . It automatically generates a bubble chart. Ignore it. Under Chart type , scroll down and select Radar chart. 2. Now you see a radar chart. However, the chart reading starts from 0, which makes the difference between Alice and Bob not big enough. Next, we make the chart reading starting from 50. We need to adjust the vertical axis.  3. Right click the chart, click Axis > Vertical axi s. 4. Set the Min of vertical axis to 50.  5. Now the difference between Alice and Bob looks bigger. Alice is blue and Bob is red. It can be easily seen that Alice is better in English and Music, while Bob is better in Math and Science. Their art scores are almost same.

Tree map chart uses rectangles to show the data of each component in a hierarchical way. For example, suppose a company sells its products to USA and Canada market. In USA, the clients are in New York City and Chicago etc. In Canada, the clients are in Vancouver and Montreal etc. Like below: To make tree map chart, you should have at least 3 columns of data. You can read the data this way: USA is part of World, New York City is part of World, Canada is part of World, Vancouver is part of Canada etc. In the first row, World is the top level, so cell B1 is blank. The third column is the number of items sold in each region, which is used as size of each rectangle in the tree map chart. When making tree map chart, the order of columns are very strict. However, the order of rows does not matter. You can rearrange the rows in a different way but the tree map chart does not change. 1. Select the data. Click Insert > Charts. Under Chart type, select Tree map chart. 2. Now you get a pretty t...

You can easily create an organizational chart in Google Sheets, as long as you set a correct data structure. Suppose a company has a reporting structure like below: 1. Select the data. Notice the first row of "Position" and "Supervisor" is excluded. Click Insert > Charts . 2. For Chart type , scroll down and select Organizational chart 3. Now you have a pretty organizational chart.