Excel Video 118 is designed to set up the data entry for our speedometer chart. The key to understanding the structure of the data is to recognize that we’re plotting the data on circular charts and will hide the bottom half of the chart later on. That means we’re working with 360 degrees in the circle, less 180 degrees for the bottom half of the chart, equals 180 degrees to plot.
Notice a couple of things as you watch the video. First, there’s a clever trick to temporarily show all of the formulas in a worksheet. Hold down the control key and click the tilde ~ key. This toggles showing formulas on and off. If you need to quickly see the formulas in a spreadsheet, this is a great trick. Also note how I can make a formula and text show up in the same cell by typing =E1&”% share” to combine the value in cell E1 with the text % share. Notice that the text part of the formula has to be in quotes.
Finally, I highlight all of the cells with values I want to change. When I come back to this chart in a few weeks or months and can’t remember how it works, it will be much easier to just focus on the four cells in yellow that drive the rest of the worksheet.
