Microsoft's bell curve guide builds a demonstration with sample values, a mean and a standard deviation. Its process uses the Analysis ToolPak to generate random data and a histogram to organize the resulting values. The example starts its bins three standard deviations below the mean and advances them by a standard deviation.

Illustrative image
Illustrative image.

This workflow illustrates how a bell-shaped distribution can be constructed for a chart. It does not establish that a separate business dataset follows a normal distribution. Keep simulated values identified as simulated, and examine the actual observations before choosing a normal curve as the explanation for a report.