How to Use Excel to Create a Bell

Curve
By James Highland, eHow Contributor

While it may seem simple in its concept, drawing a basic bell curve in
Microsoft Excel has long been a challenge for students and business
professionals alike. Of course, Excel doesn't know what shape you want
charted. So if you want a bell curve chart, you first have to enter the right
data. In this tutorial, we select a range of numbers corresponding to a Mean
average and a Standard Deviation. After applying Excel's Normal Distribution
function to those numbers, Excel gives you a perfectly-formed bell curve.
While a bell curve does require quite a lot of data, Excel 2013's AutoFill
feature automates must of the work for you.

Excel needs appropriate data to illustrate a bell curve. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

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Step 1:
Decide on a Mean and a Standard Deviation. In this example, use a Mean of
60 and a Standard Deviation of 10. To create a nicely shaped bell curve, you
need to enter data that is three standard deviations below the Mean and
three standard deviations above the Mean. Simply put, this means the
numbers 30 to 90 in a single column.

Use a Mean of 60 and a Standard Deviation of 10. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

Step 2:

Type "30" in cell A2 and "31" in cell A3. While it's possible to fill in the
remaining numbers manually, all the way to "90" in cell A62, it's much faster
to let Excel do it for you using Autofill.

Populate column A with data from 30 to 90. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

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Step 3:
Drag the cursor over cells A2 and A3 to highlight them. Right click the
selected cells and select "AutoFill" from the Context menu that opens. A blue
arrow appears below your selection.

Right-click the cells to use AutoFill. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

Step 4:
Drag blue "AutoFill" arrow down to cell A62. Excel automatically fills the
empty cells, giving you a list of numbers from 30 to 90.

Autofill automatically populates the cells. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

Step 5:
Click cell "B2." This is where you will put the Excel function to calculate the
normal distribution for the number 30 in cell A2. This function requires three
values: the number in cell A2, the Mean and the Standard Deviation. You
must also specify whether the result should be cumulative or not. In this
case, you don't want the calculation to be cumulative, so use a value of
"False." Type the following formula into cell "B2" to calculate the distribution:
=NORM.DIST(A2,60,10,FALSE)

I
nsert Excel's Norm.Dist function. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

Step 6:
Press "Enter" after entering the function. If you entered the data properly,
Excel returns a value of 0.00079155.

Properly entered, Norm.Dist gives you a very small fraction. (Image courtesy of
Microsoft)

Step 7:
Fill in cells B3 to B90 using Excel's AutoFill. Right-click cell "B2," select
"AutoFill" from the Context menu. The blue AutoFill arrow appears below the
selected cell.

AutoFill the second column. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

Step 8:
Drag the blue "AutoFill" arrow all the way down to cell B62. Excel populates
each cell with the same formula used in cell B2. All of the data you need to
create a bell curve is now in the worksheet.

Highlight the data before creating a chart. (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

Step 9:
Highlight all of the cells containing your data, from cell A2 to B62. Select a
chart to illustrate your data by clicking the "Insert" menu and selecting
"Recommended Charts."

Excel automatically recommends charts showing a bell curve. (Image courtesy of

Microsoft)

Step 10:
Select any of the recommended charts. In this case, Excel first shows a
scatter chart with straight lines and markers. You can also select a line chart
or a custom column chart.

A scatter chart with lines and markers illustrates a bell curve. (Image courtesy of
Microsoft)

Step 11:
Drag the chart to where you want it to appear in the worksheet. Click the
"Chart Title" and type "Bell Curve" to rename the chart.

I
nsert your chart and change its name to "Bell Curve." (Image courtesy of Microsoft)

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