Working with Sparklines

Sparklines are incredibly simple, tiny charts that live inside cells in your worksheet. You can make line, column, or win/loss column Sparklines with about three clicks.

Start by clicking in the cell that you want to contain the Sparkline. Just click in the cell and then go to the Insert tab. From there, in the Sparklines group, click on the type of Sparkline you want to create.

In the resulting dialog box, supply the requested Data Range value by dragging through the range you want to turn into your teeny, tiny chart.

Click OK, and voila! In this case, a Line chart Sparkline appears in my cell.

From the Sparklines tab, available whenever a cell containing a Sparkline is active, you can add markers – dots along the line at each data point – and choose whether or not to make highest and/or lowest points a different color. You can also change the color of the Sparkline itself.

In addition, if you see your Sparkline and think it might be more effective as a different kind than you started with, you can use the Type group to switch to a Column or Win/Loss Sparkline, if as I did, you started with a Line. Any type can be applied.

Once you like your Sparkline, you can use Paste Fill to create them down a column of cells, or across a row—if you have a series of ranges to plot, just use the Paste Fill box in the corner of your first Sparkline cell, and you've got series of Sparklines in one simple drag of your mouse.

If you edit the values in the Data Range for any Sparkline, the Sparkline updates. Here I've reduced one of the quarterly sales numbers – in cell F8 – and you see it immediately reflected in the Sparkline in cell H8.

And finally, if you no longer need that instant statistical picture in your worksheet? Just select the cell or cells containing the unwanted Sparklines, and use the Clear button on the Sparkline tab. All gone, in a flash. Or a spark!