From the course: Excel Data Visualization: Mastering 20+ Charts and Graphs

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Area charts

Area charts - Microsoft Excel Tutorial

From the course: Excel Data Visualization: Mastering 20+ Charts and Graphs

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Area charts

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- [Instructor] All righty, time to talk about one of my all-time favorite chart types, the area chart. And the reason I love the area chart is because it can pack a ton of insight into a relatively simple single visualization. It's commonly used for showing changes in data composition over time, although there are a few ways to build area charts. The default area chart actually shows overlapping series, like the screen shot shown in the bottom here. Or you can use a stacked area chart, just like you would use a stacked column to actually show the composition trending over time. So a few examples here, sales by department by month, downloads by browser by week, population by continent by decade. All of those are great examples of when an area chart can really paint an insightful picture. A couple pro tips here, first off, just keep the number of unique categories or data series low. I'd recommend fewer than six, really just to maintain clarity. And second, we're going to dive into this…

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