This course covers the fundamentals of Microsoft Excel and demonstrates how to use its tools to represent graphic data concisely and logically. These tools will help captivate your audience and make comparisons and trends easier to recognize and illustrate. We show you how to tell a story using graphs and break down each graph and chart type by explaining their use and underlying principles. We unpack the best and easiest methods used to visually convey messages while describing their elements and highlighting tips and tricks to bring out the best in you and your work.

We begin with ‘bar’ and ‘column’ charts and explain how you can use the differences between them to make a point. The course then moves onto ‘line’ charts and their features and illustrates how to avoid a common problem involved with their use: the ‘spaghetti plot’, which is a basic plotting error that occurs all too frequently. We then study ‘area’ charts and discuss how they differ from more well-known line charts. The course then covers ‘pie’ and ‘doughnut’ charts and navigates their many shortcomings. In contrast, the ‘scatter plot’ or ‘XY’ chart is commonly used in the scientific community to convey experimental data precisely while identifying data outliers and anomalies.

The course examines the ‘waterfall’ chart, which is used primarily in the world of finance, before comparing ‘combination’ and ‘pivot’ charts. We teach you how to create and read stock charts, radar graphs and even meteorological ‘surface’ charts and heatmaps. With each type, we go through its characteristics, features, format and unique uses. We introduce you to ‘sparklines’, which are a type of mini chart, and show you how to generate infographics with Excel. This course offers an opportunity to learn and hone a useful skill as data drives the Information Age and explaining it is made easier by effective use of charts and graphs. To that end, sign up to improve your use of Excel, which will boost your value in the classroom and workplace.