# Microsoft Office Application Help - Excel Help forum > Excel Charting & Pivots >  >  how do I plot mean and standard deviation in excel

## amg

I want to take a data series and plot the mean and standard deviation on a
bar graph.  How do I do this in excel?

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## Barb Reinhardt

Do you want something akin to an X bar Schart?  Or do you want a graph that
shows X bar with maybe an Inner Quartile Range?

"amg" <amg@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4FA33F07-C472-4645-A4F8-E5E35986CAFA@microsoft.com...
> I want to take a data series and plot the mean and standard deviation on a
> bar graph.  How do I do this in excel?

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## John Mansfield

This might describe one way to approach the creation of the chart:

Assuming your data starts in cell A1, as an example create a simple
clustered column chart based on the following data.  The data range for this
example should span A1:E8.

Data	Mean	-1sd	+1sd
A	55	44.71	34.62	54.81
B	34	44.71	34.62	54.81
C	31	44.71	34.62	54.81
D	48	44.71	34.62	54.81
E	58	44.71	34.62	54.81
F	46	44.71	34.62	54.81
G	41	44.71	34.62	54.81

The data in the column Ã¢â¬ÅDataÃ¢â¬? is your original source.

The Ã¢â¬ÅMeanÃ¢â¬? is calculated using the formula

=AVERAGE($B$2:$B$8)

The Ã¢â¬Å-sdÃ¢â¬? is calculated using the formula

=$C2-STDEV($B$2:$B$8)

The Ã¢â¬Å+sdÃ¢â¬? is calculated using the formula

=$C2+STDEV($B$2:$B$8)

Put you curser in cell A1 and create a simple clustered column chart.  After
the chart is created, you should have four columns for each Y-axis tick mark
label.  Now, convert the Ã¢â¬ÅMeanÃ¢â¬?, Ã¢â¬Å-1sdÃ¢â¬?, and Ã¢â¬Å+1sdÃ¢â¬? series to lines.  To
convert each series to a line, click on one of the columns for the Ã¢â¬ÅMeanÃ¢â¬?.
Right-click on your mouse -> Chart Type -> Line.  Go through the same process
for the Ã¢â¬Å-1sdÃ¢â¬? and Ã¢â¬Å+1sdÃ¢â¬? series.  Now all you have to do is format the chart
to your liking.

----
Regards,
John Mansfield
http://www.pdbook.com



"amg" wrote:

> I want to take a data series and plot the mean and standard deviation on a
> bar graph.  How do I do this in excel?

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## Jon Peltier

I've just posted a sample on my web site:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/RunChtLines.html

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______

amg wrote:

> I want to take a data series and plot the mean and standard deviation on a
> bar graph.  How do I do this in excel?

----------

