I am trying to create a basic bar chart to include 3 seperate cells of information

employee name year salar

I have been successful in getting the employees names in the Legend corresponding to the color coded bar, the year on the left hand side of the chart (Y) axis but I have not been able to get the salary to show in the (X) axis

Am I missing a step or am I just using the wrong chart type

Thank yo
-Jen

Jenn -

If you arrange your data like this and make your bar chart:

John Smith
1995 21,000
1996 22,000
1997 25,000
1998 27,000
1999 29,500
2000 32,000

You will get the name in the legend, years up the Y axis, and salary
along the bottom. If you add one or more columns, including names at the
top, you can compare two or more employees in the same chart.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______

Jenn wrote:

> I am trying to create a basic bar chart to include 3 seperate cells of information:
>
> employee name year salary
>
> I have been successful in getting the employees names in the Legend corresponding to the color coded bar, the year on the left hand side of the chart (Y) axis but I have not been able to get the salary to show in the (X) axis.
>
> Am I missing a step or am I just using the wrong chart type ?
>
> Thank you
> -Jenn
>
>

I don't think that will work for the information I have. What I have is this

name year1 year2 salary1 salary
smith 2001 2001 10000 1000
doe 2000 2002 500 50

The year information for both columns will vary
I need to have a chart capturing the name, year1 and salary1 then I do the same for name, year2, salary2 including all 17 people... How should the data be rearranged or can I pick what data I want to show in the bar chart?

Jenn,

What if you arranged your data as follows:

Name Year1 Year2
Smith salary1 salary2
Doe salary1 salary2
Mary salary1 salary2

Then, do a simple bar chart. You can change the appearance by switching between rows and columns when composing your chart to see which view works best.

Mike

Jenn wrote:

> I don't think that will work for the information I have. What I have is this:
>
> name year1 year2 salary1 salary2
> smith 2001 2001 10000 10000
> doe 2000 2002 500 500
>
> The year information for both columns will vary.
> I need to have a chart capturing the name, year1 and salary1 then I do the same for name, year2, salary2 including all 17 people... How should the data be rearranged or can I pick what data I want to show in the bar chart?

Jenn -

This might be a good time to learn about pivot tables. Because Mike's
suggestion works well for some analyses, but not for others.

Here's a typical arrangement:

Name Year# Year Salary
Smith 1 2001 10000
Smith 2 2002 11000
Doe 1 2002 9000
Doe 2 2003 9500

Click in the table, and select Pivot Table from the Data menu. Put the
salary into the Data range, and try various other fields in the row and
column areas. You could put multiple fields into each area, and you can
move them easily and the table updates instantly. Very powerful, and
worth playing with for half an hour to get a feel for them.

Depending on how you place fields into the various areas, you can get a
variety of tables:

Sum of Salary Name
Year# Doe Smith Total
1 9000 10000 19000
2 9500 11000 20500
Total 18500 21000 39500

Above was like Mike's, while below is the one I first thought of:

Sum of Salary Name
Year Doe Smith Total
2001 10000 10000
2002 9000 11000 20000
2003 9500 9500
Total 18500 21000 39500

With pivot tables, we're both happy, and we both are not limited to
initial concept of how the data should be analyzed.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______


Mike wrote:

> Jenn,
>
> What if you arranged your data as follows:
>
> Name Year1 Year2
> Smith salary1 salary2
> Doe salary1 salary2
> Mary salary1 salary2
>
> Then, do a simple bar chart. You can change the appearance by switching between rows and columns when composing your chart to see which view works best.
>
> Mike
>
> Jenn wrote:
>
>
>>I don't think that will work for the information I have. What I have is this:
>>
>>name year1 year2 salary1 salary2
>>smith 2001 2001 10000 10000
>>doe 2000 2002 500 500
>>
>>The year information for both columns will vary.
>>I need to have a chart capturing the name, year1 and salary1 then I do the same for name, year2, salary2 including all 17 people... How should the data be rearranged or can I pick what data I want to show in the bar chart?
>
>