Chapter 22: Creating Sparkline Graphics
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FIGURE 22.4
Column Sparklines summarize the precipitation data for nine cities.Understanding Sparkline Groups
In most situations, you’ll probably create a group of Sparklines—one for each row or column of data.
A worksheet can hold any number of Sparkline groups. Excel remembers each group, and you can
work with the group as a single unit. For example, you can select one Sparkline in a group and then
modify the formatting of all Sparklines in the group. When you select one Sparkline cell, Excel displays
an outline of all of the other Sparklines in the group.
You can, however, perform some operations on an individual Sparkline in a group:
■ (^) Change the Sparkline’s data source. Select the Sparkline cell and choose Sparkline Tools
Design ➪ Sparkline ➪ Edit Data ➪ Edit Single Sparkline’s Data. Excel displays a dialog box
that lets you change the data source for the selected Sparkline.
■ (^) Delete the Sparkline. Select the Sparkline cell and choose Sparkline Tools Design ➪ Group
➪ Clear ➪ Clear Selected Sparklines.
Both operations are available from the shortcut menu that appears when you right-click a Sparkline cell.
You can also ungroup a set of Sparklines by selecting any Sparkline in the group and choosing Sparkline
Tools Design ➪ Group ➪ Ungroup. After you ungroup a set of Sparklines, you can work with each
Sparkline individually.
Note that you can also delete an entire Sparkline group (should you want to start from scratch). Simply
select Sparkline Tools Design ➪ Group ➪ Clear ➪ Clear Selected Sparkline Groups.
Customizing Sparklines
When you activate a cell that contains a Sparkline, Excel displays an outline around all of
the Sparklines in its group. You can then use the commands on the Sparkline Tools Design
tab to customize the group of Sparklines.