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Boxplots in Excel

The document describes how to create boxplot graphs in Microsoft Excel without a built-in boxplot feature. It provides step-by-step instructions for Excel 5/95 and Excel 97 on calculating statistics from data sets and formatting the chart to depict the boxplots. Boxplots provide a simple graphical summary of a data set including measures of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, and outliers.

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21 views3 pages

Boxplots in Excel

The document describes how to create boxplot graphs in Microsoft Excel without a built-in boxplot feature. It provides step-by-step instructions for Excel 5/95 and Excel 97 on calculating statistics from data sets and formatting the chart to depict the boxplots. Boxplots provide a simple graphical summary of a data set including measures of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, and outliers.

Uploaded by

paul
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Boxplots in Excel

by Neville Hunt, Coventry University


Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was published in The Spreadsheet User Volume 3,
Number 2, November 1996.
I am grateful to Rodney Carr for greatly simplifying my original method.
Introduction
A boxplot, or box and whisker diagram, provides a simple graphical summary of a set
of data. It shows a measure of central location (the median), two measures of
dispersion (the range and inter-quartile range), the skewness (from the orientation of
the median relative to the quartiles) and potential outliers (marked individually).
Boxplots are especially useful when comparing two or more sets of data. Regrettably,
there is not a boxplot facility in Microsoft Excel 5, 95 or 97. For simplicity, many
recent statistics textbooks (for example, Daly et al, 1995) omit the fences used to
identify possible outliers. These simplified boxplots, displaying most of the important
features, can be drawn quite easily in Excel. In the absence of any fences (see Devore
and Peck (1990) for a definition), a simple rule is that a whisker which is longer than
three times the height of the box probably indicates an outlier.
Method
Suppose we have data from three groups, A, B and C. Calculate the statistical
functions QUARTILE(,1), MIN, MEDIAN, MAX and QUARTILE(,3) in that order for each
data set. Arrange the results on an Excel worksheet as shown below.
Statistic Group A Group B Group C
q1 20 22 30
min 10 15 18
median 40 45 50
max 100 110 90
q3 70 75 57
In Excel 5/95:
 Highlight the whole table, including figures and series labels.
 Use Chart-Wizard - Line - Option 7 - Data in Rows - Finish to produce something
like the chart below. Option 7 plots all the series as symbols without connecting lines,
but also includes high-low lines which connect the maximum and minimum points for
each group.
 Now activate the chart and select Format - Chart Type - Options - Options - Up-
Down Bars - OK
The outcome should be a set of boxplots, as shown below. The essential feature of
up-down bars is that they connect the first and last series - hence the rather strange
ordering of the statistics in the table!

In Excel 97:
 Highlight the whole table, including figures and series labels, then click on the Chart
Wizard.
 Select a Line Chart.
 At Step 2 plot by Rows, (the default is Columns), then Finish.
 Select each data series in turn and use Format Data Series to remove the connecting
lines.
 Select any of the data series and Format Data Series; select the Options tab and
switch on the checkboxes for High-Low lines and Up-Down bars.
References
Daly, F, Hand, D J, Jones, M C, Lunn A D and McConway, K J (1995). Elements of
Statistics. Addison Wesley / The Open University.
Devore, J and Peck, R (1990). Introductory Statistics. West Publishing Co.
This page is maintained by Neville Hunt.
Last updated 7 July 1999.

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