Excel® 2010 Bible

Chapter 21. Creating Sparkline Graphics

IN THIS CHAPTER

An introduction to the new Sparkline graphics feature

How to add Sparklines to a worksheet

How to customize Sparklines

How make a Sparkline display only the most recent data

One of the new features in Excel 2010 is Sparklines graphics. A Sparkline is a small chart displayed in a single cell. A Sparkline allows you to quickly spot time-based trends or variations in data. Because they are so compact, Sparklines are often used in a group.

Although Sparklines look like miniature charts (and can sometimes take the place of a chart), this feature is completely separate from the charting feature. For example, charts are placed on a worksheet's draw layer, and a single chart can display several series of data. A Sparkline is displayed inside a cell and displays only one series of data. See Chapters 18 and 19 for information about real charts.

This chapter introduces Sparklines, and presents examples that demonstrate how they can be used in your worksheets.

NOTE

Sparklines are new to Excel 2010. If you create a workbook that uses Sparklines, and that workbook is opened using a previous version of Excel, the Sparkline cells will be empty.

NOTE

All examples in this chapter are available on the companion CD-ROM. The filename is sparkline examples.xlsx.

21.1. Sparkline Types

Excel 2010 supports three types of Sparklines. Figure 21.1 shows examples of the three types of Sparkline graphics, displayed in column H. Each Sparkline depicts ...