ns, with large, abstract, multidimensional data sets that are visually represented in multiple ways. We illustrate how spreadsheet techniques provide a structured, intuitive, and powerful interface for investigating information visualizations. An earlier version of this article appeared in the proceedings of the 1997 Information Visualization Symposium.3 Here we refocus the discussion to illustrate principles thatmakethespreadsheetapproach powerful. These principles show how we can perform many user tasks easily in the visualization spreadsheet that prove much more difficult using other approaches. Why spreadsheets? The visualization spreadsheet’s benefit comes from enabling users to build multiple visual representations of several data sets, perform operations on these visualizations together or separately, and compare and contrast them visually. These operations are becoming ever more important as we realize certain interaction capabilities are critical, such as exploring differen...