On the "New Products" worksheet, create a Histogram chart that shows the "Retail Price" of the products in bins with widths of $10. The chart size and position do not matter.

Question

Explanation

Creating a Histogram Chart with Custom Bin Width in Excel

Overall Goal

A Histogram visualizes the frequency distribution of numeric data - how many values fall into each range (bin). Here, the goal is to show how many products fall into each $10 price range (e.g., $0–$10, $10–$20, etc.). This is the correct chart type because the data is continuous numeric (retail prices), not categorical.

Step-by-Step Procedure

Step 1: Navigate to the "New Products" worksheet Click the "New Products" sheet tab at the bottom. All subsequent actions must occur on this sheet, or your data selection will reference the wrong range.

Step 2: Select the "Retail Price" data column Click the column header or select the cells containing the Retail Price values (including the header is fine - Excel is smart enough to use it as the axis label). You must select only the Retail Price column; selecting extra columns would confuse the chart type or produce a multi-series chart.

Step 3: Insert a Histogram chart Go to Insert tab → Charts group → Insert Statistic Chart (the icon looks like a bar chart with a bell curve) → Histogram. Choosing the wrong chart type (e.g., a standard Bar or Column chart) would group data by individual product rather than by frequency distribution.

Step 4: Set the bin width to $10 This is the critical customization step:

• Double-click the horizontal axis to open the Format Axis pane.
• Under Axis Options, select Bin width and enter 10.

By default, Excel auto-calculates bin widths using an algorithm (Scott's rule), which will almost certainly not produce exactly $10 bins. Skipping this step means the chart is created but fails the requirement. Setting it to "Number of bins" instead of "Bin width" would also be wrong - you want a fixed $10 interval, not a fixed count of bins.

What Goes Wrong If Steps Are Skipped

Memory Tip

"Select → Insert Statistic → Format Axis"

Think of it as: pick the data, pick the chart, then pick the bin size. The bin width lives on the axis, not in the chart design tab - that's the step most people forget or look for in the wrong place.

No community discussion yet for this question.