Special Edition Using Microsoft® Word 2000

Using Error Bars

Error bars show degrees of uncertainty relative to each data marker in a series. They're often used in engineering applications. They're also commonplace in polling and market research, where they're used to visually represent the potential error in a survey. (If you hear that a poll is accurate to within plus or minus three percent, you can represent that statistical statement with error bars.)

Error bars display as small T-shaped lines, upright to show error in the positive range and inverted to show error in the negative range. Error bars can be added to data series in area, bar, column, line, xy (scatter), and bubble charts. To add error bars to your chart, follow these steps:

1. Select the data series to which you want to add ...