Excel 2019 Bible

Chapter 22: Creating Sparkline Graphics

22

Why Sparklines?

If the term Sparkline seems odd, don’t blame Microsoft. Edward Tufte coined the term sparkline, and

in his book, Beautiful Evidence (Graphics Press, 2006), he describes it as follows:

Sparklines: Intense, simple, word-sized graphics

In the case of Excel, Sparklines are cell-sized graphics. As you see in this chapter, Sparklines aren’t

limited to lines.

Creating Sparklines

Figure 22.2 shows some data to be summarized with Sparklines.

FIGURE 22.2

Data to be summarized with Sparklines

To create Sparkline graphics, follow these steps:

1. Select the data that will be depicted (data only, not column or row headings); if
   you’re creating multiple Sparklines, select all the data. In this example, start by
   selecting B4:M12.


2. With the data selected, choose Insert ➪ Sparklines, and click one of the three
   Sparkline types: Line, Column, or Win/Loss. The Create Sparklines dialog box,
   shown in Figure 22.3, appears.