# Excel question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 13, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453 "2009-11-13T16:40:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Danger\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Danger\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danger_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453/1 "2009-11-13T16:40:03Z")
Suppose I have a some measurements and I want to show them in a graph. I want columns whose heights show the numbers of measurements that fall into a given interval. Is this possible? The only thing I am able to do is to show every single measurement as a column. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453/2 "2009-11-13T16:41:45Z")
I don’t know the answer to your question, but probably someone in General Questions does, so I’ll move this there. twickster, MPSIMS moderator ---
**Author:** ![otternell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecc23a/32.png) [@otternell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/otternell)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453/3 "2009-11-13T16:44:43Z")
sounds like its a frequency diagram? so you have a bunch of measurements, and want the measurements along the bottom (horizontal) axis and the count of the measurments along the vertical axis? that right? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453/4 "2009-11-13T16:47:46Z")
You might consider adding COUNT formulae in your original table and graph that (unless I’m completely misunderstanding what you’re shooting for). ---
**Author:** ![Danger\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Danger\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danger_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453/5 "2009-11-13T16:48:53Z")
I think you know exactly what I am talking about. I will try that 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453/6 "2009-11-13T16:55:48Z")
Definitely sounds like frequency diagram. You need an interim step to get Excel to count the number of instances of each height. You can either use the COUNTIF function, or the FREQUENCY function which is a little less user friendly and is an array formula. So, if you’ve got data like this in the first two columns of sheet1: A 15 B 11 C 15 D 13 E 15 You then need to analyse it like this (example assumes first two columns of sheet2): 11 =countif(“Sheet1!B:B”,A2) 12 =countif(“Sheet1!B:B”,A3) 13 =countif(“Sheet1!B:B”,A4) and so on. (The numbers are in column A, the formulae in column B). Then use this data for your graph. ETA: Damn. Took me far too long to do that and someone beat me to the punch. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question/517453/7 "2009-11-13T17:45:03Z")
Check out _Tools, Data Analysis, Histogram_. If you don’t see _Data Analysis_, it was never installed, in which case, get it installed from your program discs.