Tufte-style gridlines

[Jamie Martin]

I just got my copy of Edward Tufte's classic "The Visual Display of
Quantitative Information." He suggests that instead of drawing gridlines
across a bar chart, you erase a thin line through the bars where a
gridline would be. This makes your chart less cluttered and easier to read.

Is there a way to get Excel to do this? I have not been able to find one.

Thanks very much,

Jamie

 

[James Silverton]

I just got my copy of Edward Tufte's classic "The Visual Display of
Quantitative Information." He suggests that instead of drawing gridlines
across a bar chart, you erase a thin line through the bars where a
gridline would be. This makes your chart less cluttered and easier to read.

Is there a way to get Excel to do this? I have not been able to find one.

Thanks very much,

I don't really know if it's what you want but you can set the gridlines to
be no color (white) while having the plot area colored. It works quite well
with a light gray plot area.

 

[James Silverton]

I don't really know if it's what you want but you can set the gridlines to
be no color (white) while having the plot area colored. It works quite well
with a light gray plot area.

Sorry to reply to my own reply, but I dragged out my own copy of Tufte and I
see that what you would want is a bar graph with the erased gridlines
crossing the bars. I'm afraid you've got me there tho' I agree with Tufte!
Perhaps Tushar Mehta has an answer; I stand back in real admiration of his
ingenuity!

 

[Gary Klass]

I've done it a couple different ways:

1. break the bars down into stacked-bars, each one -- except the top --
the length of a grid unit. Make all the bars the same color and use a
white border.

2. Use the drawing toolbar to draw white lines across the bars -- but
be warned, the objects often shift when you copy and paste the chart.

3. use a mixed chart type: Bars and Lines where the lines are white:
Set your data up like this, create the bar chart, click on each of the
line2-4 series and change the chart type to a line. Then make the line
white, without markers.

bar line2 line 3 line 4
5 2 4 6
3 2 4 6
7.5 2 4 6
3.8 2 4 6

note, the lines only cover half of first and last bars, add blank first
and second rows to fix this.

Sorry to reply to my own reply, but I dragged out my own copy of Tufte and I
see that what you would want is a bar graph with the erased gridlines
crossing the bars. I'm afraid you've got me there tho' I agree with Tufte!
Perhaps Tushar Mehta has an answer; I stand back in real admiration of his
ingenuity!

--
Gary Klass
(e-mail address removed)
Editor, PSRT-L
4600 Politics and Government
Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois 61790
http://LILT.ILSTU.EDU/gmklass
(309) 438-7852
(fax) 438-7638
The Chart of the Week: http://LILT.ILSTU.EDU/gmklass/cow

 

[Jon Peltier]

And since Tufte's whole emphasis is on clarity and simplicity (from the
viewer's standpoint), how you do it is probably not too important. The
intent is to minimize the crap on the chart that interferes with its
legibility and meaningfulness.

- Jon

 

[Jamie M.]

This is brilliant. I especially like that it doesn't involve fragmenting the
source data. Thanks a lot!

 

[Gary Klass]

Yes, but if you really believed in Tufte's minimalist approach you
probably wouldn't be doing bar chart at all...

And since Tufte's whole emphasis is on clarity and simplicity (from the
viewer's standpoint), how you do it is probably not too important. The
intent is to minimize the crap on the chart that interferes with its
legibility and meaningfulness.

- Jon

--
Gary Klass
(e-mail address removed)
Editor, PSRT-L
4600 Politics and Government
Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois 61790
http://LILT.ILSTU.EDU/gmklass
(309) 438-7852
(fax) 438-7638
The Chart of the Week: http://LILT.ILSTU.EDU/gmklass/cow