Excel 2010 Bible

Chapter 21: Creating Sparkline Graphics

505

Creating Sparklines

Figure 21.2 shows some data to be summarized with Sparklines. To create Sparkline graphics, fol-

low these steps:

1. Select the data that will be depicted. If you are creating multiple Sparklines, select
   all the data. In this example, start by selecting B4:M12.

FIGURE 21.2

Data to be summarized with Sparklines.

2. With the data selected, choose Insert ➪ Sparklines, and click one of the three
   Sparkline types: Line, Column, or Win/Loss. Excel displays the Create Sparklines dia-
   log box, as shown in Figure 21.3.


3. 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 does not prevent your 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 columns. For this example, specify
   N4:N12 as the Location Range.


4. Click OK. Excel creates the Sparklines graphics of the type you specified.

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 described it as

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.

Why Sparklines?