How to create a bar graph in Excel 2010 by counts?

Question

For whatever reason I can't get this to work right.

I have a column of values, say lots of A's, B's, C's, and D's.

I want to make a graph that shows "Here's how many A's we have, here's how many B's we have, here's how many C's we have, here's how many D's we have.

For some reason I do Insert -> 3d Column graph, and then I try to select the values in the column (A2 to A(some big number)), but it's like it doesn't want to count anything. It's trying to put all the values in the title of the graph, like "A B A C D A B..." and same with the legend, and then the bar graph itself just shows one flat-category at level 0. It makes zero sense.

Answer 1

Read on usage of pivot charts:

Procedure:

Pivot Table:

• Select Data
• Insert Pivot Chart
• Drag Value field to Row area and also to Data Area as Count of Value

Chart:

• Select Pivot Table
• Insert Column Chart