Scribd
Upload
26 views7 pages

Adl Five Tips Excel Charts

Uploaded by

rudra75
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
26 views7 pages

Adl Five Tips Excel Charts

Uploaded by

rudra75
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 7

Five tips for enhancing Excel charts

March 9, 2011
By Susan Sales Harkins
Excel's charting features are powerful, flexible, and easy to implement. You select some values, click a button...
and you have a chart. But don't stop there. There are many ways to enhance a chart, not for the sake of
enhancing, but to emphasis the chart's point or purpose or to improve readability. The following tips are
incredibly easy to implement, so you can share them with your users. They'll have no trouble applying these
simple techniques.
Figure A shows the data source for all the example graphs, but these techniques work with almost all chart
types. To create the example column graph, select A2:E6 and then click the Insert tab. From the Column drop-
down in the Charts group, choose Clustered Column (the first option).

Figure A

1: Shorten long Y axis labels


Large numbers on the Y axis require a lot of space. For example, Figure B shows long Y axis values. It certainly
isn't horrible, but Figure C is better. In this case, a custom format shortens the labels. To create this format, do
the following:
1. Right-click the Y axis (try right-clicking one of the labels) and choose Format Axis from the resulting
context menu.
2. Choose Number in the left pane. In Excel 2003, click the Number tab.
3. Choose Custom from the Category list.
4. Enter the custom format code $0,, \m, as shown in Figure D. In Excel 2010, click Add.
5. Click Close (OK in Excel 2003) to see the custom format at work (Figure C).
This particular combination will display all digits to the left of the second thousands separator. The \m
component displays a literal lowercase m. In this case, I chose the 0 placeholder instead of # because 0 displays
a 0 value at the 0 gridline. When you update the source values, check the axis values before printing and
distributing, just to make sure the custom format accommodates the new values.
In the end, the reader's perception might be all you're changing, but consider reducing lengthy Y axis values for
both space considerations and readability when possible.

Page 1
Copyright © 2011 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. TechRepublic is a registered trademark of CNET Networks, Inc
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html
Five tips for enhancing Excel charts

Figure B

Figure C
Page 2
Copyright © 2011 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. TechRepublic is a registered trademark of CNET Networks, Inc
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html
Five tips for enhancing Excel charts

2: Position X axis labels


A negative value can seemingly
displace the X axis labels.
Figure B (above) is a good
example. By default, Excel
displays the X axis labels just
below the $0 m gridline, not
below the plot area. This might
be exactly what you want, but
you have control -- not Excel.
To adjust the X axis position, do
the following:

1. Right-click the X axis and


choose Format Axis. (Try
clicking one of the labels.)
2. Choose Axis Options (the Figure D
default) from the left pane.
In Excel 2003, click the
Patterns tab.
3. Choose Low in the Tick Mark
Labels section, as shown in
Figure E.
4. Click Close (OK in Excel
2003). The results are
shown in Figure F.

The axis position is a setting and


not a bug. By changing the
setting, you can quickly
reposition the labels.

3: Add a dynamic title


You usually add a title manually
after creating the chart.
Consequently, the title's a static
value you have to remember to
update when the need arises.
On the other hand, if you can
link the element to a sheet cell,
the chart's title will update
when the source data changes,
saving you a bit of work.

Figure E
Page 3
Copyright © 2011 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. TechRepublic is a registered trademark of CNET Networks, Inc
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html
Five tips for enhancing Excel charts

Figure F

The trick is to reference the cell in the title element's Formula bar, as follows:
1. Add a title element by selecting the chart, clicking the context Layout tab, and then clicking the Chart
Title drop-down in the Labels group and choosing an option.
2. Select the title element.
3. In the Formula bar, enter the cell reference and press [Enter]. Or, enter = and then click the sheet's tab,
select the cell, and press [Enter]. Figure G shows the result.
Excel immediately updates the title's text to reflect the cell's contents. If you change the contents of the linked
cell (SalesCommission!A1 with Merge & Center applied to cells A1:E1), the chart title will also reflect the change.

4: Quickly add and distinguish a new series


The values you want to chart aren't always in a contiguous range. For example, you might want to add the
commission values to the example graph, but a row of ungraphed values is in the way (row 7). Fortunately,
there's an easy way to add a new series to an existing chart: Simply cut and paste the values into the chart. Excel
knows exactly what to do with the new data. To add the commission values to the example graph, do the
following:
1. Select B8:E8 and press [Ctrl]+C.
2. Select the graph and press [Ctrl]+V. Excel pastes the new series into the existing graph.
I told you it was easy! This might take care of your needs. But you might also want the series to stand out in
some way. If so, simply right-click the new series and choose Format Data Series. Figure H shows the new series
sporting clipart. (Choose Fill, Picture Or Texture Fill, Clipart. Then, select the file, select Stack, and click Close.) As
you can see in the figure, the different style draws your eye right in.

Page 4
Copyright © 2011 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. TechRepublic is a registered trademark of CNET Networks, Inc
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html
Five tips for enhancing Excel charts

Figure G

Figure H
Page 5
Copyright © 2011 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. TechRepublic is a registered trademark of CNET Networks, Inc
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html
Five tips for enhancing Excel charts

5: Change series titles


Similar to using the Formula bar to create a dynamic title, you can also use the Formula bar to usurp a link. For
example, the new series includes a reference to the legend values, but the text isn't very descriptive. If you
replace this reference with a string, you can usurp the legend's default value with a static value:
1. Select the new commission data series.
2. Highlight the first argument. As you can see in Figure I, the first argument (the legend label) is missing.
3. Enter "Commission" and press [Enter]. Be sure to include the quotation marks, as you must delimit the value
as a string. Figure J shows the results.

Figure I

Page 6
Copyright © 2011 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. TechRepublic is a registered trademark of CNET Networks, Inc
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html
Five tips for enhancing Excel charts

Figure J

You can change the legend for any series, not just one you've added. You might have to adjust the size of the
legend object to accommodate the new text.

Page 7
Copyright © 2011 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. TechRepublic is a registered trademark of CNET Networks, Inc
For more downloads and a free TechRepublic membership, please visit http://techrepublic.com.com/2001-6240-0.html

You might also like