Creating charts using text/nominal data

**indibones** · 11-24-2010, 09:49 AM

Hi, I know this is simple but I haven't been on Excel in a while and cannot work it out!

I have a spreadsheet (using Excel 2007, Vista) with a lot of text (nominal data?). One column is a list of 8 animals, so it either displays 'cattle' sheep' 'pig' etc, in different quantities; e.g. there are about 1000 cattle, 800 sheep, 50 pig..

I want to produce a chart that shows the relative abundance of each animal. I tried highlighting the relevant column and then going to the chart (I have mostly been trying a pie chart) but I am producing no graph, and I think the data is being read as the chart title.

Can anyone suggest the appropriate solution?!

Oh and how can I tell if I am working in a pivot table or not?! Awful I know..

THANKS

**ChemistB** · 11-24-2010, 09:57 AM

Are the values in the same cell as the animals or in different columns? If they are in the same cells, you'll need to separate them first using "Text to Columns" (on the data tab of the ribbon in 2007). If that's not the problem, can you upload an example spreadsheet (Advanced>Manage attachments)?

**indibones** · 11-24-2010, 10:16 AM

ok i think i have attached the file..

actually i have just realised it is a bit more complicated than i first thought. the 4th column states which animal the bone belongs to (it is archaeological data) so it is either cattle or sheep etc. if there are 1000 cattle it is because it is entered 1000 times into 1000 cells (i.e. down to D1000), so once that column is ascended all the animals are in the correct groups (sorry i know i'm not being very clear)
however my new problem is that the 3rd column on the spreadsheet states how many pieces of bone matching all the description in the line there are; so there may be 3 pieces of cattle leg bone. i know i can find how many bones in total i have from the third column - but i need to know the relative abundance of each animal - so cattle written in 1000 cells does not mean there are only 1000 cattle bones in total..
I'm pretty sure that I should be able to calculate this without completely restructuring the spreadsheet (which was given to me by a tutor)
am i making any sense?