Windmill Software Ltd
Windows Engineering Software

Excel Charting Tips

Home
Newsletters
Catalogue

Charting with Excel

This article gives tips on charting with Excel for scientific, engineering or manufacturing applications. First though, do you really need to use Excel to chart your data? For charting data in real-time, as it arrives at your PC from your laboratory instrument or industrial device, Windmill's free charting program may be better. Or, for re-running charts after collection has finished, you could use the Windmill Replay software. This lets you rewind, fast- forward, zoom in, zoom out and scroll through large data files looking for areas of interest. A third Windmill program, Windmill Graphics, lets you display a bar chart of the current data: a continuously changing snapshot of the live situation.

So why use Excel to chart data?

1. Windmill Chart and Replay always plot data against time. With Excel you could plot, for example, temperature against depth.
2. Excel offers many different styles of chart - you may decide a stock chart, say, suits your purpose better than the Windmill charts.

Choosing the Type of Excel Chart to Use

Excel provides a multitude of chart styles and it can sometimes be confusing which one is the best to use. Here we highlight three well suited to data acquisition applications - stock, bar & column and xy scatter.

Stock Chart: Useful for Displaying High, Low and Average Readings

A stock chart shows high, low and close data. This is designed for plotting stock market movements, but can be useful when plotting, say, daily temperatures. To plot the temperature range for each day you would have the date in the first column, the highest temperature of the day in the next column, the lowest temperature in the third column, and, for example, the average temperature of the day in the fourth column - replacing the stock market close data.

Column and Bar: Good for Displaying Counts

A column chart has time on the horizontal x-axis and a bar chart time on the vertical y-axis. If you have too many columns, Excel won't display all the column labels. Displaying data in bars removes this problem.

Line Charts Versus xy Scatter

You would usually use an xy scatter chart in preference to a line chart. With xy scatter an independent variable is plotted on the x-axis and variables dependent upon this plotted on the y-axis. When you add a trend line, you can see the relationship between the variables. For example you might see a linear relationship between the concentration of a compound in solution and its absorbance of light.

With Line charts the x values are more like labels than values. They are spaced equally, no matter what their value. Using our above example, suppose you plotted absorbance against the concentration of four solutions of 0, 1, 2 and 6 mM. With xy scatter the line will be straight as the 6mM point is plotted in its correct position 4 units away from the 2 mM point. With a line chart the 6mM point is plotted just 1 unit away from the 2 mM point, giving a steep rise in absorbance and thus non-linear graph.

Frequently Asked Questions About Charting Windmill Data with Excel

Can I Quickly Add None-Adjacent Columns of Data to an Excel Chart?

How can I overlay scatter and stock charts?

How do I label individual points on scatter charts?

How do I set a chart to automatically update?

Can I set the chart ignore empty cells and zeroes?

How do I get a log x axis and log y axis on the same chart?

How do I add several y axes to a chart?

How to find a y value from a known x value on an xy scatter chart?

Can I scroll an Excel Chart?

How do I show only recent data in a Chart?

How do I create a histogram?

How do I annotate a chart?

How can I paste an Excel chart as a Picture in a Report?

How do I plot one variable against another on a Column Chart?

How do I Insert a Chart with a macro?

Another Question?

Question:

Name:        
Organisation:
Email:       

More Information

• Read our tutorial on getting data into Excel from laboratory instruments and industrial devices.
• Our Monitor newsletter (ISSN 1472-0221) features a series of Excel Corners, giving hints and tips on using Excel. To subscribe to Monitor fill in your e-mail below.
  
  
• For more details of creating DDE links, see the Windmill DDE Panel Help file.
• For more information on Excel see our Links page.