What do you mean? Excel plots error bars perfectly. Double-clicking on the
graph bars itself will cause a submenu to open, click on y-error bars. What
you must do is manually input the error bars into the custom area section.
For example; add the calculated standard error of the mean (Or standard
deviations) into the custom box. if you have for example three groups
input the numbers like this +: 1.45; 2.45; 3.45 (semi-clones denote
separation between the standard error of the mean that you already
calculated) Then repeat the sequences in the - area. Note: you could run
the formula section under the insert header and have it calculate the std
error of the mean, or std deviation, or whatever on its own.
This allows you to specifically set the error bars for each bar
individually. If, you just click on the standard error section, this will
add error bars that all represent the same standard of the mean (i.e. all
bars are the same height). SO if you want to have bars that each represent
there own variance or whatever you must manually put them into the custom
box in the y-error bar section.
I do know for a fact that a major portion of people (including myself) who
submit papers in the public forum do in fact use Excel based programs for
graphic creation. You could always work with SPSS software, STATGRAPH,
Numbercruncher etc. But honestly EXCEL works quite well and is much more
user friendly than most ofter programs (for example, you can't add SEM bars
for a true bar graph in SPSS window-based programs... I haven't used version
11.00 yet which may in fact have this improvement).
NMF
----- Original Message -----
From: "BilZ0r" <BilZ0r at TAKETHISOUThotmail.com>
Newsgroups: bionet.neuroscience
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 12:04 AM
Subject: What do you use to generate graphs?
> When im at my work computer (ancient macintoshs) I used cricket graph III,
> an excellent programme, although im told a little outdated, which
basically
> allowed you to do whatever you need.
>> Im sick of using excel on my home computer, because I can't figure out how
> to make it plot error bars properly, which brings me to my question.
>> What do you guys use to generate graphs, on PC?
