To use this option, you need to set category axis to some labels.

By category: Use this if you want to bin data by a category value.

Number of bins: You can specify number of bins and let Excel decide the width.

For our call center data, bin width of 15 or 30 seconds or even 60 seconds might be interesting.

Bin width: If you know more about your data, you can set a custom bin width to analyze frequency by that.

It bins your data by dividing it in to bins of width h, where h= (3.5 * sample standard deviation) / (n 1/3).

Automatic: This is the default option.

From here, you can choose how you want to bin your data. You can also right-click on axis and choose format axis options. To customize the bins, select the category / horizontal axis and press CTRL+1 to launch formatting options. That said, you can customize the most important thing – how Excel bins data. The histogram chart offers very few customization options (compared to other charts like column / scatter plot etc.).

You will get histogram of call duration with default binning ( using Scott’s normal reference rule).

Go to Insert > Statistic Chart > Histogram.

Let’s say you have data like this and you want to understand call duration distribution. To create histogram in Excel, you need some data. Skip ahead to last section of this post if you want to know how to make Histograms in Excel 2013, 2010, 2007 or earlier versions. Using these you can quickly make a histogram and understand the frequency distribution and outliers. But in Excel 2016, Microsoft introduced various new charts including Histograms and Pareto charts. This is where you take raw data and calculate the frequencies by bins. Prior to Excel 2016, making histograms involved an intermediate calculation step. Histograms are a great way to explore the underlying distribution of values.

If you visualize the distribution of calls by duration like below, you will get a better picture. If you just average all call lengths, you might get some value like 90 seconds. You have the call log from last month and you want to know how long customers talk to your representatives. Let’s say you run a customer care center. Histogram chart shows distribution of data by grouping it in to bins (range of values). Sounds interesting? Let’s get started then. Creating histograms in old Excel (2013 or earlier versions).Let’s learn all about histograms and Pareto charts in Excel 2016. Time for some statistics and charting fun.

How to make a histogram in excel 2010