Microsoft® Office Excel 2003 Inside Out

Using Bubble Charts

A bubble chart is a scatter chart in which each data point provides three pieces of information instead of two. In the more common form of scatter chart, the xy chart, the position of each point is determined by two attributes, its x value and its y value. The same is true in a bubble chart, except that in a bubble chart each point is a bubble, the size of which is determined by the point's third attribute. An example will clarify.

In Figure 27-3, the table at A1:D6 includes three columns of data: number of competitors, sales in millions, and market share. The position of each bubble on the chart below the table is determined by its value in column B and column C. The size of each bubble is determined by its value in column ...