Part III: Creating Charts and Other Visualizations
FIGURE 22.3
Use the Create Sparklines dialog box to specify the data range and the location for
the Sparkline graphics.
- Specify the location for the Sparklines. Typically, you’ll put the Sparklines next
to the data, but that’s not a requirement. Most of the time, you’ll use an empty
range to hold the Sparklines. However, Excel doesn’t prevent you from inserting
Sparklines into cells that already contain data. The Sparkline location that you
specify must match the source data in terms of number of rows or number of col-
umns. For this example, specify N4:N12 as the location range.
- Click OK. Excel creates the Sparkline graphics of the type you specified.
The Sparklines are linked to the data, so if you change any of the values in the data range,
the Sparkline graphic will update. Often, you’ll want to increase the column width or row
height to improve the readability of the Sparklines.
Most of the time, you’ll create Sparklines on the same sheet that contains the data. If you want to create Sparklines
on a different sheet, start by activating the sheet where the Sparklines will be displayed. Then, in the Create
Sparklines dialog box, specify the source data either by pointing or by typing the complete sheet reference (for exam-
ple, Sheet1!A1:C12). The Create Sparklines dialog box lets you specify a different sheet for the Data Range but
not for the Location Range. Or, you can just create the Sparklines on the same sheet as the data and then cut and
paste the cells to a different worksheet.
Figure 22.4 shows column Sparklines for the precipitation data.
