There are so many different types of surveys and polls out there. It's hard to imagine almost any type of activity without them. Collecting and properly presenting results is probably the most important part of the process.

A gauge, dial, or speedometer chart displays a value between 0 and 100%. Where the Goal is 100%, and the displayed value is a fraction of the Goal. The actual value can be displayed as a percentage or as a number:

Some chart elements are hard to find for customization, or they are not visible at all. For example, added or updated data series may not be visible due to chart settings: located in an invisible data range, displayed with invisible markers, with disabled fill color, or because of the background image:

You can unlink a chart from its data ranges and produce a static chart that remains unaffected by later changes in the data.

Simple line and bar charts often attract little or no interest in the audience. Still, Excel allows you to attract attention to your data by emphasizing change direction, difference, or period.

When you create a thermometer chart, you are not limited to a single color bar. Instead, you can specify different colors for different value intervals. This tip shows you how to create a rainbow thermometer chart. E.g., working on some goal, you can specify risk zones for it: red zone - the risk of failure is high, yellow zone - success/fail is unknown, green zone - success is not far enough.

The distribution of market shares or stocks of the investment portfolio often is illustrated by pie or doughnut charts. The illustration of multi-market shares and multiple investment portfolios calls for different approaches. The Marimekko chart (also known as Mekko chart, or mosaic plot) comes to the rescue.

The waterfall chart, also known as the cascade chart or bridge chart, shows how each column, whether positive or negative, relates to other columns and how it affects the overall result. In other words, a waterfall chart reflects the change in value under various factors, such as time.

There are several ways to create a histogram chart in Excel. By the moment, Excel uses two different algorithms to calculate the data for a histogram chart:

This is the second part of the tip How to create a Marimekko or Mekko chart in Excel. In the first part of this tip, a step Area chart was created: