Excel has a built-in capability to add error bars to individual time points in a time series, but doing so can make the graph look messy and can conceal the overall shape or trend of the time series error.

Shaded error bands provide good estimates of uncertainty without distracting from the time series.

Heres an sneak-peek of a two time series and their associated shaded error bands.

In the example above, I use standard error but you could also use a confidence interval, standard deviation, variance, or any other measurement of uncertainty.

Below the rows containing the averages and standard deviations, we will add additional rows for the upper and lower bound of each error band.

STEP 2: FIND THE UPPER AND LOWER BOUNDS OF EACH ERROR BAND To find the upper bound of an error band, simply add the error to the average.

So in our example, I added the average (cell C2) and the standard error (cell c4).

Similarly, subtract the error from the average to find the lower bound.

In this example, I subtracted the standard error (cell c4) from the average (cell C2).

Find the upper and lower error bound for every time series in your data.

Finally, apply the formatting to the other columns by highlighting the cells containing the upper and lower error bounds, and dragging the blue square on the bottom right of the box across the rest of your data columns.

Switch the rows columns of the chart by clicking the column button (the icon with the table and highlighted column) in the data section of the Charts ribbon.

Next, remove the time series associated with the standard error by clicking on the lines and pressing delete.

Click the Area icon under the Change Chart Type section and select the Area plot.

Remove the grid lines by selecting a grid line and pressing delete.

I love all things related to brains and to design, and this blog has a lot to do with both.

Excel Standard Error For Mac