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Microsoft Excel, a windows program, may be used to create a just about any chart/graph you may desire. For the advanced user, you can create graphs/charts that look like they came off of the front cover of USA Today (you know the kind I mean, with pictorial representations for numerical data). For the novice with little computer experience (and probably no experience with database systems), you need spend little more than half an hour to an hour creating graphics slick enough for just about any report. The following directions are extremely basic, and sometimes necessarily vague, but I managed to create a host of graphics within an hour having never before used this particular program.

Go to a site that offers Excel. You should bring a disk onto which you may save your graphic. Once created, you will need to save the graphic, transfer to a computer with a laser printer (if necessary), recall the graphic, and print it at that station. Make sure you already have your data ready and an idea of the kind of graphs you want.

1. Start Excel.
You will now have a screen with some buttons on top and a spreadsheet in the middle. Excel can take info you put into the spreadsheet and automatically create a graph from it. You will need to enter your data in such a way that the spreadsheet can take all the information from one row or column and do something with it.

2. For example, if I want a line chart for the number of Sport Utility vehicles sold in the US last year by the Big Three auto manufacturers, I would put my x-axis labels in the first row and my y-axis labels in the first column, and all my data in the appropriate blocks (90 by GM in First Quarter, 70 by GM an Fourth, etc):

3. Now click on the button at the top of the screen that looks like a Bar Graph (or, you can click on Insert from the top menu, then Chart). This will launch the Chart Wizard. Just follow the directions to create the chart of your choice)

• Step 1: Chart Type – Choose the kind of chart/graphic you want it to be.
• Step 2: Make sure the column/row arrangement is correct (that you don’t have your intended x-axis on the y-axis and visa versa).
• Step 3: Give appropriate titles to the graphic and each axis.
• Step 4: Save the graphic as an object in your spreadsheet sheet. This will allow you to copy it easily into word.

To change the legend (i.e. to format lines and bars for black and white printing): Left-Click in the legend block then left click on the particular line, bar, etc. you want to format (that particular legend should now be highlighted), then right click on the highlighted legend and click Format Legend).

Be sure to save as you work.

4. To move the graph into your document, right click on an empty space in the graph (if you click on a line, bar, grid, etc. you will be able to change those things but not copy the entire graph) and click Copy. Now switch over to your Word document, put the cursor where you want the graph and click Paste (under the Edit menu).