The macro calculates interval size, counts frequencies and makes the histogram chart. The second example shows how to make a histogram with a user defined number of columns. In the first example I show how to make a histogram with a bell shaped curve like in Microsoft's example (like the image at the top), and you don't need Analysis Toolpak. You can make histograms manually, if you have installed Analysis Toolpak, but it is tedious work (see a guide here) - it is much, much faster to use macros. To be sure about the normal distribution-thing you need to test statistically, but I'll leave that to you - this is about VBA! It could be the population's age distribution or quality data, and from the shape you get a pretty good idea if it is a normal distribution or not. I also show how to make a bell shaped curve with normal distribution and the same standard deviation and mean value as the histogram.Ī histogram is a graphical representation of data distribution. The last steps will be to resize the chart, edit the chart title and maybe apply some finishing touches such as changing the column colours and applying data labels.On this page I show how to make a histogram fast and easy in Excel with VBA macro code.

Edit the bin labels in the outputted frequency distribution table to something more meaningful.

As there is only one data series the Legend does not have a purpose. For the last steps I will make a few minor changes to improve the look of the histogram.Ĭlick on the Legend and press Delete.

When you create a histogram in Excel, the initial output might not be exactly what you want.

The result will be something like the image below.

In the Output Range box, enter the cell that you want to display the frequency distribution table that will be created by the histogram tool.

For the Bin Range, select the interval values entered in step 1.

In this example that is the school grades in B4:B23.

For the Input Range, select the range of cells containing the data that you want to chart.

Select the Histogram tool and click OK.

If you cannot see the Data Analysis button, then the Analysis Toolpak has not been installed.Ĭlick the Add-Ins button on the Developer tab, check the Analysis Toolpak button and click OK to install it (Having trouble? Watch this video on how to install the Analysis Toolpak add-in).

Click the Data tab, and then the Data Analysis button.

for 60-70, enter 70.īin values have been entered in the range D4:D8 in the example below.

This will be the upper value of the interval e.g. To create a histogram in Excel, you first need to enter the bin values (interval ranges) that you want to use.For example, the histogram below displays the distribution of school grades from 20 pupils among different intervals.

How to make histogram on excel