Column charts and std deviation

**DrSpacemann** · 10-14-2008, 01:38 PM

I'm trying to make some pretty straightforward column charts and then add error bars for standard deviation on the charts, but I can't get it to do the standard deviation for each individual column of data. I can only get all of the columns to use the same standard deviation (whichever one i choose as my custom value).

Anyways I am able to set each bar to have a unique standard deviation error bar?

Using Excel 2007 btw.

Thanks

**Andy Pope** · 10-14-2008, 02:22 PM

If you want each column to have it's own error bar you will need to calculate the required value and use the Custom option.

**DrSpacemann** · 10-14-2008, 02:25 PM

Have tried that, but it automatically sets whatever value I use as my custom for that one bar (in this case the std deviation for that set of data) and applies THAT to all the columns in the entire chart.

**Andy Pope** · 10-14-2008, 02:27 PM

There would be only 1 standard deviation value for the data.

Not really sure what your are describing.
Can you post example?

**DrSpacemann** · 10-14-2008, 03:02 PM

It's ok, time was a factor, so I just reverted back to Excel 2003 and got it figured out.
Thanks for trying though.

**Andy Pope** · 10-15-2008, 03:44 AM

Can you post an example using xl2003 so that we can understand the problem and possible discover a work around.

**Maurice.** · 04-11-2009, 02:15 PM

I believe I'm having the same issue as the topic creator, so let me explain:

I have data points that are the averages of several individual pieces of data. I want to display the mean value with positive and negative standard deviation that describe the numbers that make up that mean. There are a total of five of these mean values that I need to show.

I've attached both an Excel file with the data, and a .jpg file that I generated with SigmaPlot showing how it should look. Each error bar is individual to the bar that it's associated with (values in the Excel file).

Does anyone know how to enter individual standard deviation values for each data point in Excel 2007? I could just use SigmaPlot to do all of the graphs, but that program is much slower to use, and the graphs are very ugly; since I need many of these graphs for a presentation, it's important that they look uniform and nice.

Thanks so much in advance.