Are you totally over Microsoft Excel? Sure, it can be useful, but it’s too clunky for most users and the graphs look pretty ugly. There is another way. You can use Google Sheets, the spreadsheet cousin of Google Docs, for free and on the cloud. Graphs are much more intuitive to create and edit, and they look much better. And you can easily share links or embed to a website. I decided to try it with some data from a certain sick toddler.

This graph shows the child’s temperature over a ~30 hour period. As you can see, he was running a moderate fever. Doses of the fever reducers Tylenol and Motrin are shown, which clearly bring his temperature down to normal levels before they wear off. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I detect a slight pattern of improvement – the maximum temperatures grow slightly lower with each peak.

One good thing with embedding a Google Chart is that it will automatically update on the web when you add new data. If the fever continues I will update, but I hope I don’t have to do that.