standard bell curve

[MrDonnellon]

How can I plot a standard bell curve (line graph) on a bar chart created from
data in an excel spreadsheet. So I can have a bar graph showing scores from a
test with a standard bell curve line overlayed on it to show how well the
selected group have gone compared to the 'norm.'

 

[bj]

calculate the curve data using the Normdist() fuction
add it to the chart it will initially show as a bar
select the bar for the normal distribution the chart>chart type and line

 

[Mike Middleton]

MrDonnellon -

One method is to use a Column chart type for the histogram and an XY
(Scatter) chart type for the bell curve (based on NORMDIST function values
on a worksheet).

Instructions for constructing a combination Column and XY (Scatter) chart
are available from the Histogram page at http://www.treeplan.com.

In that example the XY (Scatter) chart type is used only for labeling the
horizontal axis, but you can replace that data series with values from
NORMDIST.

An example of the latter (but without step-by-step instructions) is
available at
http://www.mikemiddleton.com/HistogramWithNormalCurve.xls

The somewhat challenging parts of the task are (a) to get the XY horizontal
values aligned with the Column chart horizontal category labels and (b) to
scale the two vertical axes appropriately.

- Mike
http://www.MikeMiddleton.com