“A picture is worth a thousand words!”
You must have encountered this phrase once in your lifetime. It simply shows how easy it is to explain a lengthy phenomenon in a picture. Though it is common to explain larger data into a box plot in Excel most of the time you don’t know how it happens.
How to make a boxplot in Excel is the most common query you often seek an answer to. Once you finally get to know how to make such diagrams, it can simply let you understand how much your data is present in multiple quartiles.
What is a Box Plot?
Talking about descriptive statistics, you often need to know how easily you can distribute data, and a box plot is the only answer to it. You will find highlighted mean values along with the outliers and numbers in quartiles. Box plots are often suitable for charts in terms of medical trial results to compare multiple test values of teachers.
The following points show the box plot basis to present data, so let’s have a look:
Minimum Value: This value includes the least data point present in the data set except outliers.
Maximum Value: This value includes the highest data point present in the data set except outliers.
Median: This is the mid value present in a dataset.
First, or Lower, Quartile: This value includes the median of the least half of the values present in the dataset.
Third, or Upper, Quartile: This value includes the median of the lower half values present in the dataset.
At times, you often find lines spreading vertically up or down in a box plot that shows how data could vary outside the upper and lower quartiles.
How to Make a BoxPlot in Excel Microsoft 365?
The earlier versions of Excel don’t have a chart template specifically used for the Boxplots. However, people still made it possible somehow but it takes a lot of effort. Office 365 now has box plots that you can use easily. Below you can find a complete step-by-step procedure for this.
- First, you need data to enter.
- Choose data from the Excel workbook and it is upon you whether you select a single or multiple data ranges.
- Open the Insert tab given on the ribbon bar.
- For Windows, choose Insert, Insert Statistic Chart, and then Box and Whisker option.
- For macOS, choose the Statistical Chart option and then click on the Box and Whisker.
A basic boxplot will appear in front of you. You can leave it here or you can even make further changes to it.
Purpose of a Box Plot:
Now, you know how to make a boxplot in Excel. Let’s see why it is important to make a boxplot and how it helps you in presenting data.
With a boxplot, you can simply distribute values along with outliers and, multiple categorical values comparisons. A boxplot diagram is used practically in statistical procedures as they let you visualize test scores data in different categories. Moreover, with a boxplot, you can easily find out the maximum outlier scores so that teachers can offer more productivity.
Final Thoughts:
In this brief guide, you have come to know how to make a boxplot in Excel and Microsoft 365. Additionally, you have learned why a boxplot is needed to be used when you have to perform statistical analysis of your data.
Keep trying and continue exploring the Excel features and tools available in all versions. It will help you in boosting future skills as well as increase your level of understanding.
