“What is the use of the book,” Alice thought, “if it contains no pictures or conversations?”
Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"

Hello everyone!

We are already accustomed to the fact that more and more often they try to submit information to us with elements of infographics. Visual materials are perceived and remembered faster than symbolic ones. Images enhance emotions and analogies in our brain, with symbols everything is much more complicated.

Designers and artists are often involved in the visualization of data in the media, Internet resources, and print media. But infographics are often needed in more “modest” situations - for example, to present information in the reports of an organization or department, to summarize the results of a stage or project, to analyze the results of a certain period. For these purposes, attracting designers may be too costly in terms of finances and time.

I work as a teacher and leader of the training materials development group at the training center"LANIT Network Academy" for more than 10 years and when I spend the course on infographics we have developed , I usually start like this: "Our course is not for designers, but for those employees who need to learn how to correctly use the available tools for fast and high-quality presentation of data."

And the article will not be about spaceships plowing the expanses of the universe, but about pots ...

Source

Unlike new-fangled trends, to prepare low-calorie and healthy food from ingredients that are little-known, expensive and inaccessible to earthly people, I offer recipes from products that are definitely in your refrigerator.

This means that everything described below can be used by an average user who has on his computer a standard office suite that includes Excel and PowerPoint.

The examples that we will continue to consider in the article can be considered “folk” creativity, as something was peeped from colleagues, something was found on the Internet, and something was deduced through multiple trial and error.

How to quickly create icons from characters and pictures?

Many, I suspect, like mine, have had situations where you need to quickly replace text signatures or legends in diagrams with visual images that are compact and understandable, and also don't forget about copyrights.

That is, only options are suitable: draw, buy, find on resources for free use, or use the available functionality of the office suite.
For the options “bought” or “found on a free resource” there were no resources (money, time, Internet), the option “draw” was dropped earlier. I clearly stood in a different line when this talent was distributed.

As a result, I was left with the option of using the existing functionality of the MS Office package.

Here the Webding and Winding fonts came to my aid, as well as the ability to copy any text label and paste it as a picture. And voila, I have tons of badges!

I think you are aware that simply using a symbol is inconvenient, since it does not scale due to resizing of the inscription, but only due to the font size.

So, we transform the symbol into an image using the PowerPoint functionality.

	On the Insert tab, select the Caption command and create an area on the slide simply by clicking in the right place.
	Then also on the Insert tab, select the Symbol command. In the window that opens, in the Font list box, select the Webding or Winding font and find the character we need. With the symbol selected, click the Insert button and close the Symbol dialog box.
	Next, highlighting the inscription, we will assign the size and color we need for the symbol.
	Now we need to cut the selected inscription using any of the available methods: a combination of keys, a context menu, or buttons on the ribbon.
	But I propose to insert using the context menu, calling it in the right place on the slide and selecting the Picture command in the Insert Parameters group.
	If necessary, you can crop the resulting image using the Crop command on the contextual tab of the Drawing Tools \ Format.

By the way, this recipe can be used in Excel.

Now let's make it a little more complicated and consider the process of creating an icon, as in the figure.

The ingredients of our recipe will be a circle with a fill and an inscription with a symbol from the Webding font. And then sleight of hand and no fraud. Let's get started.

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	For the selected received image, we add an effect using the list of commands Effects for a picture on the contextual tab Work with drawing \ Format. I recommend to start using the options from the Harvest list.

It's that simple to create icons and icons yourself in PowerPoint and Excel. It was a fishing rod, fish!

How to create a custom shape and use it as part of the created infographic?

I did not stop at the icons; I needed complex figures for presentation, which are easily composed of several simple ones. Such designers often use for decoration, and create them without much straining. I decided to measure my strength. Fortunately, with planimetry, everything is fine with me. And with the help of the commands for combining the figures and adjusting their volume, I realized several options that I liked more from the examples on the Internet.

An example was searched for for a cyclic process of 4 steps. Even without examples, it was clear that the pattern would be a circle or square.

A little trick and a bunch of manipulations, and as a result, two blanks.

And then Ostap suffered ...

I wanted to add volume ...

Of the tools, only those that are in PowerPoint, but the result was impressive.

For example, let's look at creating a three-dimensional shape from a ring for a circular loop using PowerPoint.

And again there will be no specific values, there will be a step-by-step recipe with a bunch of opportunities for creativity.

	You’ve already created a circle, so you’ll definitely create a ring on the slide, but here do not forget to hold down the SHIFT key. In addition, create a right triangle, from which we will make an arrow. And again, do not forget about SHIFT, so your triangle will be not only with a right angle, but also equilateral. The triangle must be copied 3 times to get 4 blanks for the arrows.
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	Now we’ll add volume, and for this, in the context menu of the object, select the Shape Format ... command
	In the Shape format area on the Effects tab, expand the Volume shape format group. In it, set the parameter Depth color and size. In this example, the color selected is gray, and the size is 60 pt.
	Now we’ll open the Rotate volumetric group and select the appropriate one in the list of blank options. If desired, you can change the values for any of the three axes.

If you did not use the tools for creating pseudo-volumes in PowerPoint before, then it's time to start.

How to replace textual information with a graphic object?

How often have you seen in the presentations the text in the form of simple lists or inscriptions placed according to some plan of the author, but not quite clear to the viewer? I often.

And it seems that already in several versions of Office they develop and fill with various options the functionality of Smart-Art, but it turns out, as in a joke about a cat that they don’t like because they don’t know how to cook. There is a similar story with smart art, they are often not used just because they have not been sorted out with them and have not learned how to customize to their needs.

But even designers in most cases use templates and existing developments, so why not take it into service and use smart art for its intended purpose.

They are especially useful for displaying lists, processes or cycles, organization charts, or relationships.

By placing smart art on a presentation slide or in a text file and placing the desired text in it, you can not only change and customize the overall color scheme, but also each specific object inside smart art.

The size also changes for both everything and for a specific object inside.

Here is a simple loop smart art:

And here is an example of the result of editing and formatting this smart art using standard tools.

I somehow needed to visualize the linear process, but the options for existing smart art seemed rustic, and examples of design templates on the Internet were more expressive and more suitable. Again I am at a crossroads ... And I went my way. To solve such problems, it is recommended to combine the existing smart art and the ability to create complex shapes.

As a result, such a symbiosis happened.

And now in order. Create a linear process with curly callouts.

	Create smart art by choosing the Simple Timeline option.
	Increase the length and decrease the height of the object. And so that areas with text do not appear, as in our example, we introduce in each space.
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	Move the resulting shape and connect to the first point of the timeline.
	Copy the created shape and assign it a different fill and outline color. Move and connect to the second point of the timeline.
	Select only the second point of the timeline and assign it a color, like a shape.
	We create and format the third figure and point on the scale in the same way, choosing the desired color.

As a result, we created a blank for a timeline or linear process with curly callouts. To make the picture “not crumble”, I recommend grouping it, but already when you finish editing and formatting.

How to use badges and icons in charts instead of a legend?

If you were creating diagrams, then you clearly faced the question of the need to add a legend to a particular diagram. Sometimes it seems to be superfluous at all, everything is clear, and sometimes it is definitely needed, without it you can get lost in this forest. I really liked the approach of replacing the legend with the badges for the series in the chart itself.

There are a lot of options, and this functionality was in Excel even before zero, oh, until 2000.

Icons can be inserted as padding for a specially added row or instead of labels.

Consider the first example of a line chart that shows the progress of a plan by department.

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We considered only the option of placing a picture in the row area, but you can fill in the rows with drawings, as well as replace the point markers of the series with them.

What and how are charts used to visualize the final value?

Imagine a common situation when you have a table and data accumulates in it over time. You need to display the calculated total value at a given point in time for clarity, not just with a number, but with a visual object - a diagram. Or, for example, you need to show key performance indicators (KPI). A thermometer is often used for such purposes, but a circular one is perfect.

Here are some examples.

Let us dwell on the first example.

At the heart of the ring diagram, more precisely, two. One as a blank for a ring with the same sectors, and the second to display the value itself. By adding signatures and badges instead of a legend, you can create a whole scoreboard with indicators.

Now in order.

	To create a blank on an Excel worksheet, select any empty cell. On the Insert tab, in the Charts group, we select a variant of the Chart diagram. In the empty window of the chart area, call the context menu and select the Select data command.
	In the Select Data Source window, click the Add button.
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As a result, we got a donut chart with a sector display, which is equal to the current total value. The convenience of this method is that when you change the final value, and, consequently, the result in the cell used for additional calculation and plotting, the ring diagram will change.

The remaining examples that are given at the beginning of this topic are also built using small additional calculations, combining diagram settings and overlaying graphic elements.

How to use a butterfly to compare two data sets?

Comparing two data sets is also a common task. You can use histograms or graphs without further ado, but you can add a little raisins, for example, use a diagram with a beautiful name “Butterfly”. In it, data series are displayed symmetrically with respect to the vertical axis, resembling butterfly wings.

But even this diagram can be constructed in at least two different ways.

This is how they will look as a result.

Both diagrams will require additional calculations. For the first, you need to add 3 rows of data that are easy to calculate, and for the second, the values of one of the data series are multiplied by minus one and laid off along the negative axis.

Next, you need settings for displaying the elements of the diagrams themselves.

I prefer the first option, which is why we will consider it in more detail.

Let's get started.

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	Then, in the contextual axis change, select the Axis format ... command and in the Axis format area, set the Reverse category order option. Also, using the Chart Elements button, turn off the display of the vertical axis.

So they sorted out the “butterfly”. The main thing - do not forget that this chart is for comparing two data series of the same type.

How to use real data that can change over time when creating infographics?

I already said that I can’t draw. My skills end up in coloring and applying patterns, copiers and stencils. That is why I respect and appreciate the work of designers and artists. But working conditions sometimes do not make it possible to use their abilities simply because there is no time for "all these beauties."

The data used in the reports changes during the week, or even the day. Just drawing cover for them does not make much sense, and creating infographics by the designer takes longer than these values will be relevant.

Let's look at a common situation when there is a table that collects data by week, month or year. It is important that this is a “live” table, new data are entered into it, and already entered data are adjusted. Some calculated data from this table should be monitored during the period of filling the table, and some according to the results.

In the table itself, it is not always convenient to track several values at the same time, but on a new sheet of the workbook we can create a table with links to this data and build a chart or a number of charts (dashboards) for this table or specific value. Such links are updated instantly, and therefore we will see the latest current table data on the chart.

At the same time, the ability to insert an Excel sheet on a PowerPoint slide or in a Word text document as a related object also makes it possible to prepare reporting documents in conjunction with intermediate data, simply updating the relationship between the documents. After the report is finally ready, you can break the connection, leaving the latest relevant data.

Not yet imagined how this could be? Then let's take an example.

I came across the site https://www.thesmallman.com/ .

It has an Infographics section that contains a number of files - examples of creating dashboards in Excel, which you can download and carefully parse.

One example is the AgeInfo.xlsx file .

The Ageing sheet contains data that is used to build a dashboard on the AgeInfo sheet.

In this example, the dashboard displays information about the population over 65 years of age by country.

The right side uses bar charts based on range data from the Ageing sheet.

Imagine that they were collected from another or even several other tables, that is, the values themselves are not entered into the cells, namely the links to the source data.

Presented? Now try to implement such a connection on your own example. That is, select from the source data those that you want to visualize, create a link to them from another sheet and build several diagrams, including at least one of the considered ones.

These are just a few examples from the variety of options that the MS Office suite allows. We practically did not touch on the examples with combined charts and those charts that appeared in versions 2016 and 365.

Tell us in the comments what was useful and what you already knew. Share what other visualization tasks you have to solve in conditions of lack of tools.

And if something didn’t work out or you want to continue, come to our courses ! If everything works out, we have vacancies .

And finally, a pleasant surprise for the most attentive and patient readers - a 50% discount on the online course on infographicsfor coupon INFOHABR. The coupon is valid until August 31, 2020, and access is open for 3 months. Only shhhh!

Read the rest of the article here .

Infographic with Excel and PowerPoint