Part III: Creating Charts and Other Visualizations
See Figure 20.22 for an example of a line chart that depicts monthly data (676 data points).
Although the data varies quite a bit on a monthly basis, the chart clearly depicts the
cycles.
FIGURE 20.21
If you have lengthy category labels, a bar chart may be a good choice.
A line chart can use any number of data series, and you distinguish the lines by using dif-
ferent colors, line styles, or markers. Figure 20.23 shows a line chart that has three series.
The series are distinguished by markers (circles, squares, and triangles) and different line
colors. When the chart is printed on a noncolor printer, the markers are the only way to
identify the lines.
The final line chart example, shown in Figure 20.24, is a 3-D line chart. Although it has a
nice visual appeal, it’s certainly not the clearest way to present the data. In fact, it’s fairly
worthless.
