Sometimes you may want to
analyse and view trends in your data without creating an entire chart.
Sparklines are miniature charts that fit into a single cell.
A Sparkline is a tiny chart in
a worksheet cell that provides a visual representation of data. Use sparklines
to show trends in a series of values, such as seasonal increases or decreases,
economic cycles, or to highlight maximum and minimum values. Position a
Sparkline near its data for greatest impact.
Sparkline can display a trend
based on adjacent data in a clear and compact graphical representation. Although
it's not mandatory for a Sparkline cell to be directly next to its underlying
data, it is a good practice.
We can quickly see the
relationship between a Sparkline and its underlying data, and when your data
changes you can see the change in the Sparkline immediately. In addition to
creating a single Sparkline for a row or column of data, you can create several
sparklines at the same time by selecting multiple cells that correspond to
underlying data,
Sparklines have certain
advantages over charts. For example, let's say you have 1,000 rows of data. A
traditional chart would have 1,000 data series to represent all of the rows,
making relevant data difficult to find. But if you placed a Sparkline on each
row, it will be right next to its source data, making it easy to see
relationships and trends for multiple data series at the same time.
In the image below, the chart
is extremely cluttered and difficult to follow, but the sparklines allow you to
clearly follow each salesperson's data.
TYPES OF
SPARKLINES
There are three different
types of sparklines:
·
Line
that represents the relative value of the selected worksheet data
·
Column
where the selected worksheet data is represented by tiny columns
·
Win/Loss
where the selected worksheet data appears as a win/loss chart; wins are
represented by blue squares that appear above red squares (representing the losses)
CREATE A SPARKLINE
1. Select
an empty cell or group of empty cells in which you want to insert one or more
sparklines.
2. On
the Insert tab, in the Sparklines group, click the type of Sparkline that you
want to create: Line, Column, or Win/Loss.
3. Select
the range of the cells that contain the data on which you want to base the
Sparklines.
The Sparkline will appear in the specified cell.
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