Create Your Own Thermometer

Microsoft Excel: Creating a Fundraising Goal Thermometer or Sales Quota Thermometer

This post is designed for people with marginally good Excel skills, if you need further help, you can always give us a call for any computer questions in Las Vegas!

Creating a thermometer in Excel is fun and easy. Begin by inserting a normal stacked column, and be sure to use the final cell from your goal data set. Next, delete the legend on the chart. Right-click and select Format Axis. Take the axis out by clicking None from the menu next to Axis Label. Next, right-click and select Format Data Series. Reduce the Gap Width by sliding the bar to zero percent.

Now you can resize the chart from the border, and you can narrow the body of the thermometer within the border as well. To get rid of the grid lines, just right-click inside the border to Format Gridlines and select No Line. If your original cell value is not close to 100%, go into Axis Options with a right-click. Change the Maximum option from Auto to Fixed, and then change the numerical value to 1.0. If you had .6 here, your thermometer would display 60%.

For the top of the thermometer, select the plot area of the data points, right-click and put in a solid fill color. This will show you how far you have to reach your goal. Finally, go to the Insert tab, select an oval shape for the base, and format the colors and gradients. Remove the shape outline border. This will blend the base with the tube. Grouping them together will allow you to move the tube and base as one unit.

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