how to plot a graph in excel with different slope lines

I recommend using a mid-grey for anything which isn’t worth highlighting. Right-click on the bottom axis and select Format Axis… Line option> Solid line, then select a color.Delete the left axis (radical, I know).Change, format or delete the title (in the example file, I have deleted it).

Delete the legend (the box containing the colored key at the bottom).We’ve not even formatted this chart and it’s already starting to tell us some key stories. Click the Switch Row/Column button, then click OK Within the Select Data Source dialog box, there are two main boxes (The left box contains years the right box contains the products).Right-click on the chart area, from the menu, click Select Data….

From the ribbon, click Insert > Charts > Line Chart.The chart is based on a standard line chart. The data we will be using in this example is as follows: This is a static visualization, so we need to update the colors manually if we want to highlight different items. Let’s start with a fixed format slopegraph. The slopes/angles give us an easy way to understand the story. Even without highlighting, we can see that Alpha has increased and Echo has decreased. With just a brief glance, the slopegraph shows that Delta has significantly increased. Look at the chart below – what does it tell you?

Good uses would be product margin between months, or company profits across years. They are useful for comparing two points that are equivalent to each other but separated by time or a specific event. They work so well because our brains are good at comparing slopes/angles. But, I believe, it is only in recent years, with the increase in data visualization that this chart has been brought to the attention of the masses. Slopegraphs were first introduced by Edward Tufte in 1983. Then you’ll be able to work along with examples and see the solution in action, plus the file will be helpful for future reference.ĭownload the file: 0074 Slopegraphs in Excel.zip I recommend you download the example file for this post. In this post, I want to show you how to create slopegraphs in Excel. People even asked me for my template, so they could create slopegraphs themselves. But the reaction, the first time I used one in a presentation, was unbelievable.

I’m not going to lie to you, the first time I saw a slopegraph, I was completely underwhelmed, I thought “ it’s just a line chart with two points, hardly worth getting excited about”.

How to plot a graph in excel with different slope lines