Excel CHARTING Lesson: THE BASIC EXCEL SPREADSHEET

Lesson 35 - Charting the Basic Excel Spreadsheet. Level 1 Free Training

CHARTING THE BASIC SPREADSHEET

In this day and age charts are widely used in business to represent data in another way apart from just digits in a Worksheet. Charts can add color and style to a presentation and allow the reader to easily identify the trends and patterns that you may wish to relay. Charts can be created in a number of ways, but if you have never created a chart before, the Chart Wizard within Excel is probably the best way to Start . It will walk you through the process of setting up a chart prompting you for the information that you need to complete the process. Once you have created your chart, it can very easily be modified to suit your particular taste or needs.

OK, now we are ready to create our chart. We will only create a basic chart in this lesson, as we go into much more detail during the Excel – Level 2 training course.

Creating a simple chart is easily done by following these steps.

Your chart should be produced on a separate Worksheet called CY2004 Income. They really are very easy to create and just as easily they can be modified. One thing of great importance to note with charts is that if you change your source data, your chart will update to reflect these changes.

If you wish to modify any part of a chart, you need to select that particular part, then double click to see the options available to you in the particular area that you have selected. For example if you double click on the maroon bars, you will see the option Format Data Series where you can change the color of your bars, Chart Type where you can change the type of chart you have selected, ie from a bar chart to a pie chart, Source Data which is where, if you wanted, you could change your source data. Add Trendline which obviously will give you a trendline, and Clear which when selected will delete the particular series you have highlighted.

Let’s have a look at creating a simple pie chart from non-contiguous data (data not joined together) now. This is done in much the same way as charting from contiguous data.

Let’s chart the Total Income for the year by Department

Click In Cell N2.
Type The Word Total.
Click In Cell N3 And Select The AutoSum Icon Then Select Enter.
Click Back In Cell N3 And Then Using The Fill Handle, Fill Down To Cell N7.
Format The Total Column So That Its Formatting Is The Same As The Rest Of The Table.
Click In Cell A3 And Select The Range A3:A6.
Holding Down Your Ctrl Key, Select The Range N3:N6.
Select The Chart Wizard Icon From Your Standard Toolbar.
Select Pie Under Chart Type And Select The Second Pie Chart Under Chart Sub-Type.
Click The Next Button To Take You Through The Wizard To Step 2.
No Changes To Make Here, So Lets Select The Next Button To Move On To Step 3.
Under Chart Title Type In The Heading CY2004 Income By Department.
Select The Next Button To Take You To The 4th And Final Step Of The Chart Wizard.
Let’s Select As An Object In, Then Select Finish.
Save Your Workbook.

You now have a pie chart embedded in your data as an object. This chart can be moved or sized easily. If you wish to move an object, click inside the object (in this case a pie chart) so that it becomes active. You will know it is active when you see 8 handles (squares or circles depending on which version you are using) around the edge of the pie chart. If you then hold your left mouse button down until your mouse pointer changes to a cross with four arrow heads, you can move your pie chart to it’s desired location.

You can also change the size of it easily, by selecting any of the 8 handles around the outside of your object until your mouse changes to a double headed arrow, then drag in the desired direction. Note here that if you select a corner handle, your object will be sized relatively, in other words the width will change relative to the height and vice versa as you drag.

Pie charts can be modified in exactly the same way as all other charts, by double clicking to select the part of the chart you wish to modify. Note as with all other charts, if you make a change to your source data, your pie chart will update to reflect the changes. Play Pin Up Casino online. Videoslots, pin-up girls in real games.

You can also highlight the range you want to chart and press F11. A chart appears in its own sheet as a large chart with its own charting tools menu bar.

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Go back to:

Lesson 1 - Excel Fundamentals

Lesson 2 - Starting Excel and Excel Workbooks

Lesson 3 - Excel Toolbars and Task Panes

Lesson 4 - Excel Worksheets

Lesson 5 - Excel Cells and Navigating a Worksheet

Lesson 6 - Excel Cut/Copying and Pasting Data

Lesson 7 - Excel Copying with the Fill Handle

Lesson 8 - Excel Paste Special

Lesson 9 - Excel Insert Command

Lesson 10 - Excel's default options