Excel is a great way to store and analyze multiple points of data in a single spreadsheet. But once your spreadsheet gets big enough, it can be difficult to visualize all this data effectively. That's why it may be useful for you to take a look at your data in a different way, so that you can easily identify the information you need without scrolling through all the cells manually.

5 Heat maps

Use color to identify key data

A heatmap displays your data with different color gradients to clearly indicate higher and lower values. Once you set your target values, it will shade your data cells in different colors to show you which data points are closer to (or farther from) hitting your target value.

To use this function you will need to click on the conditional formatting settings and choose the color gradient option. From there, you can choose what colors you would like the heatmap to display.

4 Pie chart

View your data as percentages

A pie chart is a circular graph that will display all of your data as a percentage of a pie. Generally, this is calculated with the total pie chart representing 100%. The smaller slices in the graph will represent your data segments as a portion of the whole. This type of visual is very helpful if you have large data sets with only a few categories, but harder to read when you have too many different categories of data.

3 Bar graph

Compare multiple data sets directly against each other

A bar graph, also known as a bar chart, is an easy way for you to visualize your data without comparing every value in the spreadsheet manually. This is very helpful for comparing data from different categories or different time periods.

Using a bar graph, you can compile all your data into bars, but there are a few formatting options to choose from. You can first choose whether you want the bars in your bar graph to be vertical or horizontal. You can also choose if you want your bar graph to be a 2D model or a 3D model.

2 Line graph

Easily show trends among your data

Line graphs are great for visualizing trends in your data. This is incredibly useful if you have a lot of data input over a long time period. The line in the line graph will go up when increasing and down when decreasing.

You can have multiple lines on your line chart, which allows you to examine the upward or downward trajectory and compare it to other lines in the chart. This can also be very helpful for predicting data in the future based on previous trajectories.

1 Spiderweb graph

A more advanced way to view data

A spiderweb graph, also known as a radar chart or web chart, is a complex way to display your data in Excel. The graph, as you can see, resembles a spider's web and lets you compare data in multiple dimensions while still keeping the graph itself in 2D.

The spider graph has multiple axes to it (for example: months) and plots the data from separate categories on the same "spiderweb" so that you can easily compare the values side by side for each variable. This not only shows you each individual data point, but also the trends of each category of data.

View your spreadsheets in a new way

There are a ton of ways you can change the way you look at your spreadsheets in Excel. No need to drown in numbers. Instead, use these methods to make your spreadsheets stand out in presentations and display all relevant information without any hassle. For more advanced data visualization, check out our article about how to craft pivot tables and dashboards.