YoungTurk
Mechanical
- Jul 16, 2004
- 333
Hi,
When I use pivot table to create bar charts which summarize my data, I need to include error bars based upon standard deviation. For whatever reason, selecting "Standard Deviation(s)" doesn't work at all, the error bars are the same across an entire series and do not align to the tops of the bars.
So what I do instead is create a second pivot table with the identical format as the pivot table used to create the bar chart and change it from a table of averages to a table of standard deviations. Then I use the "Custom" error bar option and select the appropriate standard deviations in both the "+" and "-" fields. Voila! I have a beautiful bar chart showing the correct standard deviation on each bar.
Here's the catch: if I update either pivot table (the averages or the standard deviations) the error bars disappear. Furthermore, it seems the same occurs if I update any other pivot table which references the same data as the chart or the pivot tables used to create it, which is every single pivot table in the work book.
This is very frustrating, as it is essential to show the standard deviation in my line of work, but I still need to be able to update the tables to reflect changes in the source data.
HELP!! Comments, suggestions for work arounds, solutions greatly appreciated. If I have to re-insert those damn bars one more time my Dell is going to become airborn!
Thanks
YoungTurk
When I use pivot table to create bar charts which summarize my data, I need to include error bars based upon standard deviation. For whatever reason, selecting "Standard Deviation(s)" doesn't work at all, the error bars are the same across an entire series and do not align to the tops of the bars.
So what I do instead is create a second pivot table with the identical format as the pivot table used to create the bar chart and change it from a table of averages to a table of standard deviations. Then I use the "Custom" error bar option and select the appropriate standard deviations in both the "+" and "-" fields. Voila! I have a beautiful bar chart showing the correct standard deviation on each bar.
Here's the catch: if I update either pivot table (the averages or the standard deviations) the error bars disappear. Furthermore, it seems the same occurs if I update any other pivot table which references the same data as the chart or the pivot tables used to create it, which is every single pivot table in the work book.
This is very frustrating, as it is essential to show the standard deviation in my line of work, but I still need to be able to update the tables to reflect changes in the source data.HELP!! Comments, suggestions for work arounds, solutions greatly appreciated.
If I have to re-insert those damn bars one more time my Dell is going to become airborn!Thanks
YoungTurk