This add-in was written to allow linguists to visualize comparisons of word form or annotation frequencies between different subcorpora (e.g. according to metadata such as native language of the speaker/writer, genre of the text etc.), but it can probably be used to visualize comparisons between columns of numbers in Excel in general.
The add-in compares the numbers in each selected cell with the corresponding cell of a control column. Selected cells are then colored red if they have a higher value or blue for a lower value, with a deeper color the stronger the deviation from the control value. Below are some example images of the add-in in work.
To install the add-in, download it from this link and put the file in your add-in directory (usually C:\documents and settings\YOUR_USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\AddIns), then open Excel and go to Tools > Add-Ins and browse to select the file. Finally, check the add-in 'underoveruse'. The add-in can be uninstalled by unchecking this checkbox.
To use the add-in go to the new menu Underuse/Overuse and select 'Run analysis...'. This opens up a form allowing you to change the control column and the ranges of values corresponding to each color.
This add-in is available under the GNU General Public License. If you use it for scientific work, a link referring back to it in the publication is always welcome. If you find any bugs or also other uses for it than linguistics, we're always interested in hearing about it!
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| Underuse and overuse of word forms in the International Corpus of Learner English by native language compared to the native English LOCNESS control corpus. | Underuse and overuse of part-of-speech tag sequences in German learners by native language, compared to the German control group (de) in the Falko corpus . Completely blue rows show sequences learners find difficult independently of native language. |