Charts in Microsoft Excel

It can be difficult to interpret Excel workbooks that contain a lot of data. Charts allow you to illustrate your workbook data graphically, which makes it easy to visualize comparisons and trends.

Watch the video below to learn more about charts.

Understanding charts

Excel has several types of charts, allowing you to choose the one that best fits your data. To use charts effectively, you'll need to understand how different charts are used.

Common Chart Types:

• Column charts: Use vertical bars to represent data. They are most frequently used for comparing information.
• Line charts: Ideal for showing trends over time, making it easy to see if values are increasing or decreasing.
• Pie charts: Make it easy to compare proportions of a whole. Each value is shown as a slice of the pie.
• Bar charts: Work just like column charts but use horizontal bars instead of vertical ones.
• Area charts: Similar to line charts, but the areas under the lines are filled with color.
• Surface charts: Display data across a 3D landscape. They work best with large data sets to see a variety of info simultaneously.

Click the buttons in the interactive below to learn about the different parts of a chart.

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Chart Title

The title "Book Sales" clearly describes what data is being presented in the graph.

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Vertical Axis (Y-Axis)

This axis shows the "Total Sales" amount, ranging from $0 to $140,000.

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Data Series

This bar represents a specific data point: The sales for Romance novels in February.

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Horizontal Axis Title

This label identifies the categories on the X-axis, which are the book "Genres".

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The Legend

The legend tells you what each color represents. In this chart, the colors correspond to the months (Jan-May).

To insert a chart:

1. Select the cells you want to chart, including the column titles and row labels. In our example, we'll select cells A1:F6.

2. From the Insert tab, click the desired Chart command (e.g., Column).

3. Choose the desired chart type from the drop-down menu.

4. The selected chart will be inserted into the worksheet.

Chart Layout and Style

After inserting a chart, you can edit its layout and style from the Design tab.

To add chart elements:

You can add titles, legends, and data labels. Click the Add Chart Element command on the Design tab.

To edit a title, simply double-click the placeholder and begin typing.

Quick Layouts and Styles:

• Quick Layout: Use predefined combinations of chart elements.

• Chart Styles: Quickly modify the look (colors and backgrounds) of your chart.

You can also use the chart formatting shortcut buttons to quickly add chart elements, change the chart style, and filter chart data.

Other chart options

To switch row and column data:

Sometimes you may want to change the way charts group your data. Click the Switch Row/Column command on the Design tab to reorganize the grouping.

To move a chart:

1. Select the chart and click the Design tab.

2. Select the Move Chart command.
3. Choose to move it to a New sheet or an existing worksheet.

Keeping charts up to date

If you add more data to your spreadsheet, the chart may not include it automatically. You can click the chart and drag the handle in the lower-right corner of the highlighted data range to expand it.

Challenge!

• Open our practice workbook.
• Select cells A1:E6 and insert a 2D Clustered Column chart.
• Change the chart title to September to December Sales.
• Use the Switch Row/Column command.
• Move the chart to a new sheet.
• Change the chart type to line with markers.
• Use the Quick Layout command to change the layout.

FAQs