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Introduction

ata presentation in figures for scientific publicationsis the foundation of our collective scientific

knowledge and critically important toward furtherdevelopments.1 However, authors generally use figuresto present summary statistics, instead of providingdetailed information about the distribution of the data orshowing the full data.1 Many results in research studiesare usually summarized as the mean and standard erroror standard deviation in decades.2 The summarized dataoften cause readers to incorrectly infer that the data arenormally distributed with no outliers. Weissgerber etal.1 clearly demonstrated that many different datadistributions can lead to very similar mean and line graphs.It might be necessary to take a careful look at some new,unknown issues, or error investigations in research anddevelopment in various fields.

"The simple graph has brought more information tothe data analyst's mind than any other device," Wickham

　Communication

Excel macros to more easily customize markers and lines on graphsfor clear and accurate visual data presentations

Noritaka Mamorita,1 Naoya Arisaka,1 Hidenori Inaoka,1 Akihiro Takeuchi2

1 Department of Medical Informatics, Kitasato University School of Allied Health Sciences2 Department of Medical Informatics, Kitasato University School of Medicine

Objective: Parts of Excel graphs, e.g., markers, and lines, can be customized by pointing and modifyinglines or markers in small sample sizes; however, it is more difficult to manually customize multipletargets in large sample sizes. We developed macros that more easily customize markers and lines withcolors and sizes.Methods: Our Excel macros were developed and tested with Excel 2013 on Windows 10. Macroscustomize special markers and lines in Excel graphs according to color and width properties that thosemarker sizes or line widths were set in the right side cells of the data series on an Excel sheet.Results: We coupled original data and property data on each row line with certain key words on anExcel sheet. The macros are: Cell_color_to_RGBhex, Line_coloring, Line_width, Marker_coloring,Marker_size, etc. We showed that the graph of virtual sample data, 73 series with 4 paired tests, canbe customized using macros.Conclusions: Although there were relatively few core source codes of macros for simplicity, in thissample run, those macros easily customized markers and lines of sample virtual data to be colored andsized on an Excel default graph.

Key words: Data visualization, Excel graph, Excel macro

et al.3 Weissgerber et al.1 argued that scatterplots allowreaders to quickly asses the direction, magnitude, anddistribution of the changes. Some graphing applicationsare well designed, make graphing easier, and provideadditional functionality (e.g., GraphPad Prism, andSigmaPlot).4 However, these commercial applicationsmay be more expensive than Microsoft Excel. Articleshave been published with update task analyses for userswith Excel 2007 or 2010.5,6 Excel is very useful as adatabase and graphing tool. Additional functions aredeveloped and customized with Excel macro and VBA(Visual Basic for Applications) to answer various userproblems. Weissgerber et al.1,2,7 created and distributedthe Excel templates and free web-based tool for presentingcontinuous data in small sample size studies.

Although parts of Excel graphs, such as axes, labels,markers, and lines, can be customized by researchersusing small sample sizes, it is often exceedingly difficultto manually customize many markers and lines in largesample sizes. When designs of markers and lines are not

Received 3 July 2019, accepted 19 July 2019Correspondence to: Noritaka Mamorita, Department of Medical Informatics, Kitasato University School of Allied Health Sciences1-15-1 Kitasato, Minami-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-0373, JapanE-mail: mamorita@kitasato-u.ac.jp

Kitasato Med J 2019; 49: 134-139　

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Excel macros to customize markers and lines on graphs for visual data presentations

Figure 1. Marker and line properties defined on a data sheet

Figure 2. User interface of Excel macros

suitable to present the data by any of the default settings,the user should change all the target objects by manuallyclicking an object and modifying each design. The largerthe sample size, the more difficult it is to display the datain graph form. Therefore, we developed some new Excelmacros to more easily customize special markers andlines with colors and widths that accurately display dataseries in Excel graphs.

Methods

Our Excel macros below were ordinarily developed andtested with the development tool, Excel 2013 on Windows10. Macros presented in this document customize specialmarkers and lines in Excel graph according to colorproperties and width properties that those marker sizesor line widths were set in the right side cells of the data

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Figure 3. The macro flow chart includes several core source codes.

Figure 4. Macro selection window with macro titles listed alphabetically

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Excel macros to customize markers and lines on graphs for visual data presentations

series in an Excel sheet (Figure 1). The top cell of eachproperty column had a predefined key word, such as:"Marker_coloring," "Marker_size," "Line_width,""Line_coloring," and "Line_segment." Red, green, blue(RGB) values were described in hexadecimal numbersin columns of "Marker-coloring" or "Line-coloring."While the values of the "Line_width" must be greaterthan 0, the values of the "Marker_size" must be greaterthan 1.

When a graph is meant as a target graph, and a specialmacro is selected via the macro selection window, themacro: (1) gets an address (row and column numbers)from the original data of the target graph to find theproperty columns near the original data; (2) searches andgets the property data with the key words: "Line_coloring,""Line_width," "Marker_coloring," etc. on the top line ofthe address sequentially; and (3) modifies target objectson the graph according to the properties (Figure 2). Figure3 is a flow chart of the macros. The boxes include onlya few core source codes for simplicity. The marker linecolor is set by "Series.MarkerForeGroundColor," andthe line color of the connecting lines is set by"Series.Format.Line.ForeColor." In the flow chart, them a r k e r s t y l e w a s d e f i n e d a s a c i r c l e b y"xlMarkerStyleCircle." That was the result of our prosand cons examinations because closed circles were clearerand more suitable in a scatter plot and a series plot thanother markers: triangles, squares, diamonds, etc.

Results

All of the newly created macros are included in the Excelfile, "IRmacrosEngl.xlsm (700 kB)." To adapt the macros

to a user's Excel graph, the user should: (1) open (run)both the user's Excel graph and the macro file concurrently(Figure 2), (2) point to a target graph in the user's Excelsheet, (3) open the macro selection window (Figure 4),and (4) select a macro listed in the window.

Each macro title was created describing its functionlisted in the macro selection window (Figure 4). Themacros are listed alphabetically: "Line_blackening,"" L i n e _ c o l o r i n g , " " L i n e _ s e g m e n t i n g , ""Line_width_decrease," "Line_width_increase,"" L i n e _ s e t t i n g , " " L i n e _ w i d t h _ s e t t i n g , ""Marker_color ing," "Marker_decrease ," and"Marker_increase," etc. "Line_setting" is a combinationof "Line_coloring" and "Line_width_setting.""Line_segmenting" colors line segments separately.Other related macros were: "Cell_color_to_RGBhex,""Cell_to_RGBhex_color," "Indexing_Sheets," etc."Cell_color_to_RGBhex" writes the hexadecimal valueo f t he ce l l backg round co lo r t o t he ce l l ."Cell_RGBhex_to_color" inversely colors the cellbackground according to the RGB hexadecimal valuedefined in each cell. Those macros were used to colorthe cel ls displayed in Figure 1 . Using the"Same_size_graph" makes the size of all the other graphsin that set the same size as the target graph in a sheet atonce.

Virtual sample data, 73 series with 4 paired tests, areshown in Figure 1. The original graph is usually createdby the Excel default setting (series labels are deletedhere) (Figure 5). Although the lines and markers in Figure5 were designed with the default colors, the marker size,and the line width, they were not clear or suitable todisplay.

Figure 5. An original graph created by Excel default settings

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The lines and markers in Figure 5 were sequentiallycustomized with the macros, "Line_blakening,""Marker_sizing," and "Marker_coloring" as seen inFigure 6A. All the lines in the figures are black. The topline showed the first series in the sheet in Figure 1. Fourlarge red markers were compatible to "20" in the"Marker_size" column and "FF0000" in the"Marker_coloring" column. The other small purple andcyan markers were customized in the "Marker_size" and"Marker_coloring" columns. The macro "Line_coloring"sets all the data lines in a figure to blue lines (Figure 6B).The macro "Line_segmenting" sets each line color toRGBhex defined in the "Line_segment" column (Figure6C). The colors of the lines and their meanings arearbitrarily defined by the user as, "increasing betweenneighboring values" to "00FFFF" and "decreasing values"to "FF9900," e.g., those values were defined by the Excelequation: " = if (C2 < D2, "00FFFF", "FF9900" (Figure 1)."

The macros "Line_decrease/increase" and"Marker_decrease/increase" decrease or increase in astep-wise fashion for all line widths and/or all markersizes in a graph. All the macros were also adapted to ascatter plot graph as shown in Figure 2.

Discussion

To discover new trends or findings in the raw data ofexperiments, it is important to carefully read the raw dataand distinguish special data from others. To makedistinctive data or trends stand out in Excel graphs, itmay be necessary to manually exaggerate markers andlines, not jam data. For all target markers, those manualsteps are as follows: pointing to a target marker or line,clicking on the right button of the mouse or pad, and

Figure 6. The macros modified the original graph (Figure 5) to setting marker and lines (A), to blue lines (B), and to color trend lines (C).

checking option boxes in a property window. However,in large sample sizes, it is difficult to point manually to atarget object on many overlapping lines in a graph suchas that in Figure 5. Although a macro selection windowmust be opened in Excel, these newly developed macroscan customize target objects without having to manuallyclick on objects.

To do this, we coupled original data and propertydata on each row line with key words on an Excel sheet.Then we developed the Excel macros to more easilycustomize special objects with colors and sizes in graphs.We could not find any articles describing this concept ormacros in the PubMed database using the key words:"macro, graph, marker, and line." For paid and freegraphing software (SPSS, DeltaGraph, R, etc.), it ispossible to customize lines and markers with colors andsizes individually with complicated original programmingcodes. However, our Excel macros can automaticallycustomize target objects by the Excel equation, dependingon data.

Our macros are considered to be useful for displayingand observing time series data such as clinical researchwith larger sample sizes. However, the color of lines andmarkers needs to specify the red, blue, and greencomponents with hexadecimal values.

Although concrete data of this experiment are notshown here, our newly developed macros weresurprisingly easy to use and produced clear and accurategraphs. These types of macros will be further developedto customize any and all objects possible in your Excelgraphs.

Conflicts of Interest: None

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4. Basics of graphs. Avai lable a t : h t tps: / /www.linkedin.com/pulse/basics-graphs-jatin-raina.Accessed May 21, 2019.

5. Dixon MR, Jackson JW, Small SL, et al. Creatingsingle-subject design graphs in Microsoft Excel 2007.J Appl Behav Anal 2009; 42, 277-93.

6. Vanselow NR, Bourret JC. Online interactivetutorials for creating graphs with Excel 2007 or 2010.Behav Anal Pract 2012; 5: 40-6.

7. Weissgerber TL, Savic M, Winham SJ, et al. Datavisualization, bar naked: A free tool for creatinginteractive graphics. J Biol Chem 2017; 292: 20592-8.

References

1. Weissgerber TL, Milic NM, Winham SJ, et al.Beyond bar and line graphs: time for a new datapresentation paradigm. PLoS Biol 2015; 13:e1002128.

2. Weissgerber TL, Garovic VD, Savic M, et al. Fromstatic to interactive: transforming data visualizationto improve transparency. PLoS Biol 2016; 14:e1002484.

3. Wickham H, Grolemund G. R for Data Science:Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data.California: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 2017.

Excel macros to customize markers and lines on graphs for visual data presentations