I was asked to expand on one of my examples, specifically to show a dynamic chart with multiple dynamic series.

I made up the following data set:

I created the following chart, and when the first series was selected, the SERIES formula showed the cell addresses of the ranges defining its data.

I defined the following dynamic names:

The OFFSET formula defining XLabels basically says, starting with cell A1, move down one cell and right zero cells, and give us the range which is as tall as the number of labels, given by the COUNTA function, and as wide as 1 cell. The other OFFSET formulas merely say, give us the range 1, 2, 3, or 4 columns to the right of XLabels. This is a shortcut that assures all dynamic ranges are the same size.

To link the series to the dynamic ranges, all that is required is to replace the static cell references in the SERIES formulas with the names defined above. Here is the first SERIES formula when the cell addresses have been replaced by the names, before pressing Enter.

Since the names were defined with the workbook as their scope, pressing Enter converted the references to workbook references, that is, referenced to MultipleDynamicChart.xls instead of Sheet1.

When data is added to the range…

… the SERIES formula is not changed, but the ranges defined by the dynamic names does change, so the chart updates.

The workbook with this example can be downloaded as a zip file, MultipleDynamicChart.zip.

Here is a partial list of my articles on dynamic charts.

• On the PTS Blog
  • Dynamic Charts
  • Dynamic Chart using Pivot Table and Range Names
  • Dynamic Chart using Pivot Table and VBA
  • Dynamic Ranges to Find and Plot Desired Columns
  • Split Data Range into Multiple Chart Series without VBA
  • VBA to Split Data Range into Multiple Chart Series
  • Dynamic Chart Source Data (VBA)
  • Display One Chart Dynamically and Interactively
• On the Peltier Tech web site
  • Dynamic and Interactive Charts (an overview)
  • Dynamic Chart
  • Another Dynamic Chart
  • Chart the Last 12 Months
  • Charting Dynamic Normalized Ranges
• Published in TechTrax ezine
  • Dynamic Charting By Dates

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

Debra has provided her usual comprehensive step-by-step instructions and an example workbook you can download. Her example was done in Excel 2007, but it works as well in previous versions.

Debra contributed the first Dynamic Chart example on my fledgling web site, back when it was still just a hobby on GeoCities.

Here are more dynamic chart tutorials I’ve written:

• On the PTS Blog
  • Dynamic Charts
  • Dynamic Chart using Pivot Table and Range Names
  • Dynamic Chart using Pivot Table and VBA
  • Dynamic Ranges to Find and Plot Desired Columns
  • Split Data Range into Multiple Chart Series without VBA
  • VBA to Split Data Range into Multiple Chart Series
  • Dynamic Chart Source Data (VBA)
• On the Peltier Tech web site
  • Dynamic and Interactive Charts (an overview)
  • Another Dynamic Chart
  • Chart the Last 12 Months
  • Charting Dynamic Normalized Ranges
• Published in TechTrax ezine
  • Dynamic Charting By Dates

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

There are a couple of ways to achieve this interactive control. There is an easy method that relies on worksheet formulas to alter the contents of the source data range of each series, and there is a more involved technique that uses VBA to programmatically adjust the chart’s source data. This post will describe the approach that uses worksheet formulas.

Checkboxes and Worksheet Formulas

Start with a column chart that includes all of the series you will allow the user to select from (A, B, and C in this example). Add a checkbox from the Forms toolbar for each series.

This works as well for a line chart, though the formulas have to be different for line and column charts.

The data range is shown below. The original source data is in J3:M8, and the three checkboxes link to the three cells in K1:M1.

There are two calculated ranges below the original data range. The category labels have simply been copied from the original range, but the other data is linked using worksheet formulas.

For the first calculated range, select K10:M15 so K10 is the active cell, enter

=IF(K$1,K3,"")
 

then hold CTRL while pressing ENTER to fill the formula into the entire selected range.

For the second calculated range, select K17:M17 so K17 is the active cell, enter

=IF(K$1,K3,"")
 

then hold CTRL while pressing ENTER to fill the formula into the entire selected range. Then select K18:M22 so K18 is the active cell, enter

=IF(K$1,K4,NA())
 

and again hold CTRL while pressing ENTER to fill the formula into the entire selected range.

If the Series B checkbox is unchecked, L1 is FALSE, so L10:L15 appear blank, L17 also appears blank, and L18:L22 contain #N/A.

The source data range for the column chart has been changed from J3:M8 to J10:M15. The data for Series B appears blank due to the “” in the formulas, which Excel treats as zero. The bars for Series B have a height of zero, so they don’t appear, and the legend entry for Series B is “”, so it doesn’t appear.

There is still a gap between the bars for Series A and Series C where Series B fits. There also is still a legend key for Series B, which is the unlabeled orange square between the green and blue squares. The legend can be hidden, but then another means is needed to identify the series in the chart.

We don’e want to use “blanks” in the source data for the line chart. Since the “” are interpreted as zero values, the line and markers for Series B lies along the horizontal axis, where Y=0. The legend entry for Series B displays no label, but the legend key still appears (the red bos and line).

For a line chart, use the range J17:J22 as the source data range. This uses #N/A instead of “” to indicate undisplayed values, so the line and markers for Series B don’t even appear in the chart. We still have that pesky unlabeled legend key, though.

It would be nice to use the same data range for both line and column charts, but the #N/A error does not preclude plotting a point in a column chart. The value is zero as in a line chart, but if you put value labels on the points, the result is a label that says “#N/A”. There is no fancy trick using number formats to hide the error.

Using the range with apparent blanks results in labels of “0″ at points corresponding to apparent blanks.

Using a custom number format of “0;;;”, we can suppress the display of any label except positive numbers (and errors).

What happens if the user gets excited and unchecks all of the boxes? The data ranges respond as expected:

And the column chart and line chart both show no data, with unlabeled legends.

CheckboxAndFormula.zip is a zipped workbook which you can download to illustrate this technique.

Checkboxes and VBA

In the next article, I will show how to use VBA in conjunction with the checkboxes to control a column or line chart with a single worksheet range and no formulas, while avoiding gaps for missing columns in the column chart and also avoiding  unlabeled legend entries.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

Jorge used a data set Nathan provided for his Poverty in the US visualization project. The chart Jorge dislikes looks like this:

It’s not really terrible, though I won’t deny it’s dull and maybe a bit cluttered. It’s more informative if less glossy than the infographic that was favored in Nathan’s challenge. But Jorge thinks that showing all of the state names was too much.

In some cases, an effective display might be to show two charts, the top five and the bottom five, and ignore the data in between.

But Jorge also wanted something interactive. So I put together a little dynamic chart that had all fifty bars but highlights the five closest to the current mouse location. As you move the mouse up and down along the chart, the highlighted region moves with the mouse.

Pretty cool, and the actual chart (see below for a download) is cooler than the static image above.

Well, Jorge is a pretty tough customer. He doesn’t just want to highlight the bars under the mouse. He wants to expand them, and shrink the unhighlighted bars. The effect is rather like an accordion. It was all I could do to keep up with Jorge’s requirements, but I cobbled together an example that I think he’ll be happy with.

Not only are a handful of bars under the mouse highlighed, but the highlighted bars are big and fat, while the unhighlighted bars are small and unobtrusive. And it’s completely interactive.

Again, the dynamic chart in the sample download is way cooler than this screen shot. An advantage of the accordion chart is that the unhighlighted bars can be compressed, shrinking the chart without shrinking the highlighted region. This ability to fit the same dynamic information into a smaller space would make this a good candidate approach for an interactive dashboard.

You can download Accordion.zip, which contains two Excel 2003 worbooks. NoAccordion1.xls is the plain version, with highlighting but no accordion-like expansion and contraction. Accordion1.xls is the deluxe version, where the highlighted region expands to grab your attention, while the unhighlighted bars shrink into the background. Open each workbook with macros enabled, then click on the chart to activate the animation.

The data is on the second worksheet of each workbook, along with a set of helper columns with the calculations that make the charts work. The code is unlocked, and you’ll be surprised how simple it is. Hardly a dozen lines in each workbook.

Update – 12 February 2009

Colin has noted that the accordion chart above would be better if all bars were labeled. I’ve adjusted the Accordion chart so the unhighlighted bars have lighter labels.

I’ve added labels for unhighlighted bars in the NoAccordion chart. In response to Colin’s other suggestions, I’ve also changed the mouse actions so that mousing past the bars doesn’t move the highlighted region, but instead clicking on a bar or label toggles that bar between highlighted and unhighlighted status. In this chart I’ve highlighted the New England states.

These workbooks are Accordion2.xls and NoAccordion2.xls, found in Accordion2.zip.

Update 2 – 12 February 2009

Dick Kusleika has made an adaptation to this chart that always displays the user’s home state. As he so astutely points out, “Does anyone really look at the top or bottom five before he finds his own state?” Read about it in Ego Charts.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

An astute reader named Eric thought that the chart would be more effective if the moving bubble left a trail of breadcrumbs, as it were, the annual mileposts along the travels of the moving bubble. I took up the challenge, and it took less time to work up than it’s taking to write this post.

I modified the data somewhat, since it was made up anyway, so that the path traced by the moving bubble was more continuous. I also defined some names in the worksheet which contain the whole series of data from the first point up to the point where the moving bubble has reached.

Here is a summary of the names, if you’re playing along at home. The first three names were present in the first version of this chart, and were used by the VBA program in its interpolation routine. The next three names are the X and Y values and the Diameters for the bubbles. Finally, I’ve included the chart series formula for the new series.

Name          Refers To
FirstColumn    =Data!$B$12
LastColumn     =Data!$B$13
ControlColumn  =Data!$B$14
AllYearsX      =OFFSET(Data!$A$3,0,1,1,GapminderExcel.xls!ControlColumn-1)
AllYearsY      =OFFSET(AllYearsX,1,0)
AllYearsD      =OFFSET(AllYearsX,2,0)
Chart Series   =SERIES("All Years",GapminderExcel.xls!AllYearsX,
               GapminderExcel.xls!AllYearsY,1,GapminderExcel.xls!AllYearsD)
 

The workbook can be found in GapminderII.zip.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

This linked-picture trick is related to Excel’s Camera tool, which means two things. First, it’s pretty cool. Second, using it more than a few times will consume resources and slow down the workbook’s response. If you are linking to one picture of many, this is the way to do it, but if you merely want to show different set of data in your chart, it’s more than you need. In this post I will show you an easy and resource-friendly way to achieve the same effects in your dynamic report.

The Report Layout

I’ve set up my report as shown below. Cell F2 contains the selected quantity to be plotted, and I’ve named the cell “WhichChart”. The original data is in B17:E25, and a second data range linked to the first is in B28:E36. The borders around parts of the range B28:E36 show the chart source data range of the working chart, which I will discuss shortly.

One or both of the data ranges can be moved to a different place on this sheet, or onto another sheet, so that the focus is on the chart itself.

Data Selection

To make the selection of a chart more flexible, I changed the data validation list source of cell F2 (“WhichChart”) so it refers to the range C17:E17 rather than a hard-coded list (see the dialog below). This way, if I change one of the headers, I don’t need to update the data validation list.

I generally prefer using a dropdown control or a listbox. A dropdown always shows the drop down arrow icon, so the user knows he can choose something even when the cell is not selected. A listbox shows all options without having to go to all the trouble of dropping down a list. But data validation is pretty easy to use, so it’s really a matter of choice.

The Dynamic Chart

I then constructed a chart that contained all of Chandoo’s data and the formatting from Chandoo’s three charts. I used B18:B25 for the category (X-axis) labels, C17:E17 for the series names, and C18:E25 for the series Y data. To make the chart title dynamic, I selected the title, typed = in the formula bar, then selected the range C17:E17, and pressed Enter. The chart title then displayed the formula =Report!$C$17:$E$17. When multiple cells are selected like this, Excel concatenates the cell values, inserting a space between non-blank items.

The Dynamic Data

The second data range is linked to the original data, with a twist. It compares the column header to the selection in F2 and shows or hides the column as appropriate. I selected the range C28:E36 with C28 the active cell, entered this formula, then pressed Ctrl+Enter to enter the formula into the entire selected range:

=IF(C$17=WhichChart,C17,"")
 

This hides the headers and Y data for the non-selected column of data. I changed the source data of the chart so that B29:B36 (purple outline) is used for the category (X axis) labels, C28:E28 (green outine) for the series names, and C29:E36 (blue outline) for the series Y data. I also changed the title link formula to =Report!$C$28:$E$28. The outline colors correspond to the colors that Excel highlights these ranges when the chart’s plot area or chart area is selected. When Sales is selected, the data range looks like this (with only the Sales column displayed):

and the chart looks like this:

Final Touches

This isn’t quite perfect yet, but it’s easy to finish. First, apply a custom number format of 0;;; to the data labels in the chart, so the zero values (corresponding to the blank cells) are not shown. Second, format any one of the series in the chart so that it has an overlap of 100, so that all columns overlap, and there is no horizontal space wasted for columns with no data. Here is the finished chart:

Download this dynamic chart (in a zipped workbook).

• Gas Prices – Animated Bar Chart for Excel
• Gas Prices – Animated Bar Chart for Excel 2
• Gapminder for Excel
• Rolling Wheel Animation

This example shows the position and path of a moving projectile which is launched at a given velocity and angle. The math is high school physics, with a little calculus and trig thrown in. If you want to see that, download the workbook (link below), or consult a textbook or a smart kid.

The workbook has a data entry area and my usual animation controls. When the angle and velocity are entered, a results table shows how long the projectile will be in flight, how long it will take to get to maximum altitude, and what altitude and distance the projectile will reach. Some assumptions were made to simplify the model, as in all physics problems. The ground is flat at sea level, and the effect of air resistance is neglected.

Set the angle to 45° and the velocity to 100 m/s, and start the animation.

Here is the end of the animation for 30° and 7 m/s.

And this one is for 75° and 100 m/s

The workbook containing this model can be downloaded here: Ballistics.zip.

Would McCain be the oldest US President? Would Obama be the youngest? Who was the youngest president? Were presidents younger in the past or older? What is the highest number of years a former president lived after leaving office? Who served the longest? Whose term was the shortest?

The chart lets you view presidents lifetimes and terms in office on a regular timeline, aligned by birth, or aligned by start of time in office. When you mouse over a bar, a pop-up displays the president’s name, date of birth and death, and dates in office. Here are a few screenshots.

I found this graphic very interesting, and I even learned a couple things. For example, I knew JFK was the youngest president ever to take office, until this chart showed me that Teddy Roosevelt actually held this honor. If I get ambitious, I may try to replicate this graphic in Excel.

I built an animation which can be extracted from this downloadable zip file. The top of the worksheet has the playback controls and other inputs to the left and the chart to the right. The first example uses a wheel radius of 10 and a second point at a radius of 0 (the axis of the wheel)

Press the button to start the animation. The red line stays at the same height, while the blue line traces a curve called a cycloid.

Here are the traces when the second point is at a radius of 5 (midradius).

Here are the traces when the second point is at a radius of 15 (outside the radius of the wheel rim). This is similar to the case of a train wheel, which has a flange to keep the tain on the track. The outer surface of the flange actually moves backwards at the bottom of its travel.

In this example, the second point has a radius of -10, so it appears on the rim opposite the first point.

I found another explanation of this in Rolling: the physics of wheels, on the web site of the School of Physics at The University of New South Wales. There is a large collection of similar animations on their Physclips page.

I downloaded Nathan’s data workbook and duplicated Nathan’s animated bar chart in Excel in Gas Prices – Animated Bar Chart for Excel, and while the animation was captivating, the viewer loses track of the actual time period of the data at the point of the animation. I added a small inset chart in Gas Prices – Animated Bar Chart for Excel 2 to show progreess along the entire time series, but this wasn’t totally satisfactory.

I went to work creating an interactive time series chart in Excel. The basic chart is a line chart showing all the data; all series are in a light color, and one particular series, selected in a listbox, is highlighted in a bright color. This technique was described in Easier Interactive Multiple Line Chart and in Interactive Parallel Coordinates Chart.

The top section of the worksheet is shown below. I inserted a couple columns to accommodate the highlighted series. Cell C1 is named ColIndex, and its value is used in formulas in column A to determine which column between D and L is reflected in column A. The formula in cell A4, for example, is

=INDEX(D4:L4,ColIndex)

The chart is shown below. The listbox is linked to the ColIndex cell, so changing the listbox changes the values in column A of the data sheet.

All series have been plotted in the line chart, using the dates in column C as the X values, and the prices in columns D through L for the Y values. All of these series are colored light gray. The prices in column A are added to the chart as a new series, and this series is given a bright color so it stands out. The last point is given a data label, using the Series Name option.

To try out the animated chart, download this zip file. It is unlocked and unprotected, so you can see how it is constructed and how it works.