Plots and tables

Put a chart on the page from the Plots tab. Sweep and Summary tables live on Insert. Charts and tables read names defined further up the sheet, so write the calculation first.

Which tool for which job

Tool	What it draws	Where it lives
Line, Area, Scatter	One or more series against X and Y. Bind each series as a sweep, as typed data, or as a pair of arrays.	Plots, XY Charts
Bar	Horizontal bars: one bar per entry of a dropdown list, showing an output variable.	Plots, Bar chart
Polar Line, Area, Scatter	The same three series modes plotted as theta and radius.	Plots, Polar plots
3D Surface	A sheet variable z swept over a grid of two inputs. Its own region type, with no series list.	Plots, 3D
Sweep	Vary one input down the rows and tabulate any number of outputs as columns.	Insert
Summary	Labels beside live-linked result cells, exportable to Excel.	Insert

Sweep, Data, or List

Every XY and polar series is bound one of three ways, and the choice matters more than the chart type. Sweep re-evaluates the sheet across a range of one input and reads an output back at each step. Use it when the curve is the answer to a calculation. Data takes numbers you type by hand. List binds two worksheet names that already hold arrays. All three are set out in full under 2D plots, and polar charts use them unchanged. Bar charts are the exception: their categories come from a list.

The pages

1. 2D plots — how do you bind a series, add a second one, and pin a value on the curve?
2. Polar plots — what changes when the axes become theta and radius, and how are angle units read?
3. 3D surfaces — how do you plot a sheet variable over a grid of two inputs?
4. Sweep tables — how do you tabulate several outputs against one varying input?
5. Summary tables — how do you collect the headline answers into one block and send them to Excel?