Sparklines in Excel

re: Sparklines in Excel

joehoang — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:31:00 GMT

At first I am sorry if my following comment might not relate to this post. The reason is that I don't see any post about using Edit Data tool that supports users to manipulate sparkline with empty cells. My problem is that when I set type of a sparkline as Column or Win/Los, "Show empty cells as gaps" and "Show empty cells as zero" options both make non-effect.

I ask because it is noticable that the option "Connect data points with line" is disable for Column and Win/Los sparkline type. It means the two options that enable should support something.

Someone, please help!

re: Sparklines in Excel

Joseph Chirilov — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:34:35 GMT

Jay: Yes, Excel Services 2010 will be able to render sparklines created in Excel 2010.

Sparklines in Excel Services?

Jay Lakumb — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:30:04 GMT

Will sparklines be supported in Excel Services 2010?

re: Sparklines in Excel

Chris Damsgard — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:13:03 GMT

I came here to add the comment that the In-Cell line charts (what you call sparklines) needed to have an option for a "normal" or target range (e.g. +/- 3 sigma). I see now that others realize the same thing.

I also want to declare strong agreement with Colin's first comments on bullet charts and box plots at the very top.

Part of my job is creating effective dashboards for a Fortune 500 company, and Excel Services has been my tool of choice for over a year now. But there is still much to be desired in the way of charting and visualization.

re: Sparklines in Excel

Colin Banfield — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:55:17 GMT

It's doubtful that "in-cell charts" could be confused with the REPT() stuff. First of all, REPT() for charting purposes is not a function that's obvious to a majority of users, and secondly, there's never been any official terminology or feature named "in-cell charts" in Excel - so at the end of the day, who's being confused?

For the 99% of users that have never even been exposed to to the term "sparkline," what meaning does "sparkchart" convey? For these folks, "In-cell charts" is descriptive, and straight to the point. However, given that the feature is being hyped so much, the marketing folks at Microsoft would probably prefer a fancier name.

re: Sparklines in Excel

Jon Peltier — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:42:59 GMT

I think the term "in-cell charts" is a bit awkward, and it might be confused with the retro all-text spreadsheet charts built up with characters using REPT().

What's wrong with "Sparkcharts"? Sparklines and sparkbars are subsets of sparkcharts, and in fact the W-L charts are subsets of sparkbars.

re: Sparklines in Excel

Colin Banfield — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:02:57 GMT

Stephen, good point. What's confusing is that the term sparkline is being used for stuff that aren't lines at all (e.g. Column Sparkline). The free tool "Sparklines for Excel" and Bissantz SparkMaker are guilty of the same thing . BonaVista uses the term "MicroCharts," where the Sparkline is one of the microcharts. ConnectCode refers to their SparkCode Professional software as Sparkline software but they don't describe all the charts they produce as Sparklines. ConnectCode also has a free version called TinyGraphs, where the Sparkline is described as one of the graphs.

The moral of the terminology issue you've raised suggests that the Ribbon group should be renamed to something generic like "In-Cell Charts," where the Line option just happens to approximate a Sparkline.

re: Sparklines in Excel

Stephen Few — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:18:20 GMT

Just a quick comment regarding terminology. The term "sparkline" is being used too liberally in this discussion. Tufte didn't invent small graphs, he invented a particular type of small, high-resolution graph that displays time-series values without axis lines or scales, called a "sparkline." As he states in "Beautiful Evidence": "Small graphical images have collaborated with text and tables for centuries." A bullet graph is not a sparkline, nor are data bars. Placing a graphic in an spreadsheet cell does not make it a sparkline. You won't find any mention of spreadsheet cells in Tufte's description of sparkline (nor any interest in spreadsheet software whatsoever). To avoid confusion, which is easily created and easily spread, I recommend we use our terms more precisely.

Thanks,

Steve

re: Sparklines in Excel

MIchelle Becker — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 06:15:11 GMT

I just saw a live demo of Sparklines in a room with 12K ppl...and it got major applause. pretty cool stuff. go team excel!

re: Sparklines in Excel

Colin Banfield — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:11:16 GMT

"It would be great when creating a pivot table if I could see both the aggregate values and a sparkline giving me the context behind themm. Any advice greatly appreciated."

"Sam: Not automatically :-/ this is something we really want to add." ...one of these days.

If you really need this feature in your lifetime, then you can try XLCubed.