Using Chart Builder in SPSS

Cheatsheet

Published

July 29, 2024

About

This cheat sheet provides a step-by-step guide to plotting various chart types, customising elements, and refining of the visualisations in SPSS.

  • You have SPSS installed, ideally version 28.0 or later.
  • You can follow instructions to select, click and drag elements in SPSS.

The data should be in a long format (also known as tidy data), where each row is an observation and each column is a variable (Figure 1). If your data is not already structured this way, reshape it manually in a spreadsheet program or in R using the pivot_longer() function from the tidyr package.

Sex BW
F 2.15
M 2.55
F 2.95
F 2.70
M 2.20
F 1.85
M 2.55
M 2.60

 

F M
2.15 2.55
2.95 2.20
2.70 2.55
1.85 2.60
Figure 1: Data should be in long format (left) where each row is an observation and each column is a variable. This is the preferred format for most statistical software. Wide format (right) is also common, but may require additional steps to analyse or visualise in some instances.

1 Data

We have two separate datasets. The first dataset is part of the possums dataset used in BIOL2022 labs. It contains two numerical variables: ExpBLUP and AactiveTBLUP. The data is available in the file possums-blup.csv.

The second dataset, penguins.csv, contains data collected by Dr. Kristen Gorman and the Palmer Station, Antarctica LTER. Details about the dataset can be found here.

2 Creating a plot/chart in SPSS

# Step Description View
1 Import data Open SPSS and load your data by going to File > Open > Data or by dragging and dropping a file into the SPSS window. Step 1
2 Access Chart Builder Click on Graphs > Chart Builder in the top navigation menu. Step 2
3 Select a chart In the Chart Builder dialog box, select the desired chart type from the Gallery tab, and drag it into the preview area. Step 3
4 Choose variables Drag and drop the variables you want to plot into the appropriate fields (e.g., X-Axis, Y-Axis). Step 4
5 Customize chart Adjust chart elements such as titles, labels, colors, and patterns using the options in the Chart Builder dialog box. Step 5
6 Refine chart Fine-tune the chart by adjusting axis scales, data point symbols, and other properties in the right panel. Step 6
7 Create chart Click OK to generate your chart. You can edit the chart again by double clicking on it. To export, right click on the chart and select Export… Step 7

3 Tips and Variations

  • Use the Dual Y-Axis option for multiple scales.
  • Experiment with different chart types and customizations.
  • Save your chart as an image or copy it into another document.

4 Examples

Under construction!

5 Resources

  • Building Charts by IBM SPSS – Official documentation on creating charts in SPSS.
  • Charts from Curtin University’s Introduction to SPSS – sample data and instructions for creating various charts in SPSS.

6 License

This work was developed using resources that are available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, made available on the SOLES Open Educational Resources repository by the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney.