How to Make a Pareto Chart in Excel

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more commonplace Microsoft Excel to create your Pareto chart.

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Although Pareto charts can be easily created in
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Fortunately, Pareto charts can also be created in Microsoft Excel 2007 , and we’ll explain how in this step- Free Project Management Forms for the
by-step guide. Planning Stage

http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/8708.aspx[9/21/2010 12:00:46 PM]

How to Make a Pareto Chart in Excel
Creating the Initial Pareto Chart

Before getting started, you may also want to take a look at Performing a Pareto Analysis in Excel to get a
better idea about how a Pareto chart is used.

To begin, input the data from your project research into a table, which we'll use to create a chart in Excel.
This doesn’t have to be a “fancy” table, but it does need to contain information on Count, Percent of Total,
and Cumulative Percent as shown in the screenshot below. We actually won’t use the Count column to
create the Pareto chart, but it is needed to calculate the other figures so we’re including it in this example.
(Click any image below for a larger view.)

After the data has been entered, select the columns containing the information related to the Problem,
Percent of Total, and Cumulative Percent. If your data is in non-adjacent columns, like in our example
here, hold down the Ctrl key in order to select multiple items at once.

With the data still selected, click on the Insert tab of Excel’s main toolbar. From the Charts group on
this tab, select Column and then pick the first entry (Clustered Column) of the 2-D Column choices.

At this point, your chart should look like the one below. It doesn’t quite look like a Pareto chart yet, but
don’t worry – we still have some changes to make!

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How to Make a Pareto Chart in Excel

Modifying the Pareto Chart

Next, right-click on one of the bars representing the Cumulative Percent data. From the options menu that
appears, choose Change Series Chart Type.

This option will let us represent the Cumulative Percent data as a line while leaving the Percent of Total as
a bar representation. When the Change Chart Type window appears (see screenshot below), choose
the first option in the Line category.

Now, things are starting to look a little better.

Continue on to the next page for the remainder of this tutorial on how to create a Pareto chart in Excel.

Showing page 1 of 2 1 2 next

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How to Make a Pareto Chart in Excel

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Pareto Charts and Analysis

Looking for tips on how to perform a Pareto analysis or how to create a Pareto chart in Excel? Check out
some of the other articles in our Pareto series.
1. When Do You Need to Use a Pareto Chart?

2. Performing a Pareto Analysis in Excel

3. Creating Pareto Charts with Microsoft Excel

4. Using Pareto Analysis on Surveys

5. Problem Solving for Projects with Pareto Analysis

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