The Microsoft Office Excel tool is not only useful for making calculations using functions and formulas , but you can also use it to generate graphs from data in tables. Such is the case with histograms and frequency polygons. In this post we will show you how to make a histogram and frequency polygon in Excel . Continue reading and see how to do it.
How to Make a Histogram and Frequency Polygon in Excel?
Index( )
- What is the procedure to make a histogram in Excel?
- How to create a frequency polygon?
- How to join the ends of the histogram bars to finish the polygon?
- How to remove the space between bars from the chart?
- Is it possible to add a title to the histogram and polygon when finished editing?
What is the procedure to make a histogram in Excel?
Before proceeding to run any graph such as histogram, it is necessary to make a table and organize the data correctly in Excel. Once you have your table with the data prepared, you can proceed to execute the histogram, for which it is recommended to do the following:
- Navigate to the top menu of the Excel interface, and choose the “Insert” tab.
- Go to the “Insert Column Charts” tool and click on the icon.
- An empty chart will be displayed on your spreadsheet. Right-click on the empty chart and choose “Select Data” from the menu that appears.
- You will see that a pop-up window appears, you must click on “Add”.
- When you click on add, a pop-up box opens, where you must fill in some fields. The first of them is “Series name”, you must put the name of the series. In this case we will place Histogram of frequencies.
- And in the Series Values, you should choose the range of values you need to plot, for example, absolute frequency is typically chosen.
- Click on accept once you have filled in the indicated fields.
- In the “Horizontal axis labels” proceed to edit the names that correspondto each column of the graph, for this you can choose the corresponding data range by clicking on the “Edit” button.
- Click on “OK” and voila, you will have your histogram.
Remember that another form or peculiarity of the histogram is the Pareto diagram , and this is another resource that you can make in Excel.
How to create a frequency polygon?
The way to obtain a frequency polygon in Excel is very similar to the procedure for obtaining the histogram. However, the chart type changes from columns to lines. Here we show you:
- Navigate to the top menu and choose “Insert”, go to the option “Insert Line Chart”and click on that icon.
- In the empty graph window that is generated, right-click on the graph area and choose the “Select data” option.
- Click on “Add”.
- In the name of the series, place “Frequency Polygon”.
- In the field “Values of the series” put the range of values that you want to graph. Typically the “absolute frequency” is placed.
- Edit the values of the horizontal axis by placing the values of the class intervals, and then click “OK”.
- To finish the process, click on “Accept” and you will have your frequency polygon.
How to join the ends of the histogram bars to finish the polygon?
Sometimes it will be very useful to have the histogram and frequency polygon graphs together in the same space or graph. In addition, it will also be possible to take the ends of the histogram bars and join them together to form a polygon; follow the steps below to achieve it:
- You already know how to form a histogram, and this will be the starting point to join it to the frequency polygon.
- Click on the histogram graph area, right-click and choose the “Select Data” option.
- Click “Add” and add a new data series.
- In the name of the series, place frequency polygons.
- In the “series values”field , choose the same data with which you formed the histogram, that is, the absolute frequency.
- The result in the graph will be two series of columns with the same size. We now proceed to convert the second series of columns into a frequency polygon.
- Click on the column of the series belonging to the polygon and navigate in the upper menu to “Insert”, choose the option “Insert line graph”and that’s it.
How to remove the space between bars from the chart?
Generally, histograms are formed by successive columns without spaces between them, so it will be convenient to know the process to eliminate the space that is created by default in graphs of this type. Pay attention and edit your chart:
- With the histogram drawn up, proceed to click on its area 2 times.
- A menu will open on the right side of the Excel interface.
- In data series format, in the “Series Options”menu, go to “Interval Width” and enter zero “0” in the corresponding field.
- Press the “Enter” or “Enter” key and voila, the space between the bars of your graph will have disappeared.
Is it possible to add a title to the histogram and polygon when finished editing?
Excel will always allow you to add identification information to your charts , and you can do this by adding a text box, or by using the chart interface itself. To place the title from the graph interface, follow the procedure below:
- Tap in the chart area, and click the “+” symbolthat appears next to the chart.
- You will see that several options are displayed, check the ones that seem convenient to you to edit your graph. However, the most important and object of this section is “Chart title”.
- Edit the information in the“Chart Title” pop-up field typically placed at the top center of the chart and you’re done.
As you may have noticed, it is easy to use Excel to obtain the histograms and frequency polygons that facilitate certain and certain studies. To expand the information that we have given you, you can visit the official Microsoft page and see how to create histograms in Excel, according to its recommendation. We hope the information we present to you has been useful to you and we invite you to continue reading to see how to do it.