I found an interesting technique a while back on the Juice Analytics site, that works well in Numbers.
The technique uses the REPT Function, to create neat in-cell graphs.
The Numbers manual defines REPT as:
REPT(text, copies)
- text: The text expression to be repeated.
- copies: The number of times text is repeated.
For example: REPT(“x”,10) gives you “xxxxxxxxxx”.
Let’s look at a “real world” example. I want to show quick graphic of Major League Baseball home run leaders through 8/28/2007. I grabbed the stats off the web, then created three columns. The first column was player name, the second was number of home runs year to date, and the third was reserved for my formula. I pasted in my players, and home run numbers, then input my formula.
The formula was, REPT(“[apple symbol]“, number of home runs)
There are a number of symbols that look good in the in-cell charts, the lowercase “o” or “|” for instance.
Another idea, if the number of items you are charting is large, is to only repeat a percentage of the text. For instance:
REPT(text,(copies*.5))
This will reduce the number of repeated text items by half.
You can download an example sheet below.
