Using Chart Builder in SPSS

Cheatsheet

Published

August 4, 2026

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.

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.

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

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.

Examples

Under construction!

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.

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.