Beyond my personal bias, I can make the positive case for switching from spreadsheet app to R for graphics is that the learning curve for making good graphs with Excel and other spreadsheet apps is as steep as learning how to make graphs in R (see Why do we use R Software?). And, without considerable effort, most of the interesting graphics (e.g., box plots, heat maps, mosaic plots, ternary plots, violin plots), are impossible to make with spreadsheet programs.Īt this point, you can probably discern that, while I’m not a fan of spreadsheet graphics, I’m also not a purist - you’ll find spreadsheet graphics scattered throughout Mike’s Biostatistics Book. However, you will find spreadsheet apps are typically inadequate for generating the kinds of graphics one would use in even routine statistical analyses (e.g., box plots, dot plots, histograms, scatter plots with trend lines and confidence intervals, etc.). This choice will work for you, at least it will meet the minimum requirements asked of you. Microsoft Office Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers for Mac, and LibreOffice Calc are good at these kinds of graphs - although arguably, even the finished graphics from these products are not suitable for most journal publications.įor bar charts, pie charts, and scatter plots, if a spreadsheet app is your preference, go for it, at least for your statistics class. You may already have experience with use of spreadsheet programs to create bar charts and scatter plots.
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