iWork '09: The Missing Manual

Creating Charts

Tables are an efficient way to store and organize a large amount of information in a highly readable format, but charts make your data dance. Charts turn numbers into graphic visuals which, when used well, highlight trends at a glance and communicate the message of your data far more efficiently than a table of raw figures. They’re certainly less tedious than reading the straight prose: “In 2004, Up & Away’s sales of vertigo gloves were $1.5 million a year; in 2006 they rose to $1.76 million, before dipping to $1.3 million in 2008.”

Charts are graphical representations of lots of little bits of data—data that you organize in a table or spreadsheet. With your numbers in place, the stage is set for a modern miracle: From the stultifying columns of numbers, Pages helps you instantly create a gorgeous chart to reveal the hidden pattern behind the numbers. True, the most revealing charts are not always gorgeous, and gorgeous charts are not always revealing. Pages gives you the tools to build and dress your charts, and it’s up to you to use them the right way (see “Beware of Chartjunk” starting on Beware of Chartjunk).

In Pages, you can’t build charts directly from tables, handy as that would be. But your table data is still just a quick two-step away from its chart metamorphosis. As you’ll see, you create and edit a chart’s data with the Chart Data Editor, which works like a very basic table of numbers—no formulas, no autofill, none of the other clever math-minded goodies ...