Add Median to Box and Whisker Plot

QI Macros has to go through many gyrations to get Excel to draw a good box plot. The values for the boxes are not the actual Q1, Median and Q3. They are the height of the box, not the actual value. To show the Q1, Q3 and/or the median, you will want to add another data series to the chart as follows:

To add the median label to the chart:

*Included in the April 2023 release of QI Macros*

  1. Select your data, and create a Box & Whisker from the "Box, Dot & Scatter Plot" drop-down menu - QI Macros does the rest!
  2. box-and-whisker-median-automatically-added-to-chart

*For all versions of QI Macros prior to the April 2023 release*

  1. Select and copy the Median, Q1, and/or Q3 values from the data sheet:
  2. select and copy median calculations

  3. Paste the data into the Box and Whisker Plot:
  4. add data to box plot

  5. Now you have a marker for the data point. To add a label for the value, right-click on the new point on the chart (in-between the two boxes) and click Add Data Labels:
    add labels to data points
  6. Here is what the box should look like:
    median label before formatting
  7. Next, you can use Excel's formatting capabilities to hide the marker and to change the text to white.

    Change marker type to none

    marker option to none
    Change text to White

    change text color
  8. Here is what the final box looks like:
    after format

Excel Box Plot with Median Added

box plot with median values

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