Excel 2019 Bible

537

C H A P T E R

23

Visualizing with Custom Number

Formats and Shapes

IN THIS CHAPTER

Custom formatting numbers

Creating visualizations with shapes and icons

Creating your own infographic elements

An overview of Excel’s other graphics tools

V

isualization is the presentation of abstract concepts or data in visual terms through some sort

of graphical imagery. A traffic light, for example, is a visualization of the abstract concepts

of stop and go.

In the business world, visualizations help us to communicate and process the meaning of data

faster than simple tables of numbers. Excel offers business analysts a wide array of features that

can be used to add visualizations to dashboards and reports.

In this chapter, you explore some of the formatting techniques that you can leverage to add layers

of visualizations and turn your data into meaningful views.

All of the examples in this chapter are available on this book’s website at http://www.wiley.com/go/

excel2019bible. The filename is Visualizations.xlsx.

Visualizing with Number Formatting

When you enter a number into a cell, you can display that number in a variety of different formats.

Excel has quite a few built-in number formats, but sometimes there are none that are exactly what

you need.

This chapter describes how to create custom number formats, and it provides many examples that

you can use as is or adapt to your needs.

Doing basic number formatting

The Number group on the Home tab of the Ribbon contains several controls for applying common

number formats quickly. The Number Format drop-down control gives you quick access to 11 common

Excel® 2019 Bible, First Edition. Michael Alexander, Dick Kusleika and John Walkenbach.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.