Charts: Basics

Quick reference

• 00:04 Charts really need no introduction in Excel.
• 00:07 A chart is data presented in picture format.
• 00:11 To add a chart, click anywhere in your data, click on Insert,
• 00:14 and there's a bunch of buttons with various chart types you can click.
• 00:19 Or click on Recommended Charts and Excel will give you some options,
• 00:22 It's as easy as that.
• 00:25 The option that Excel gives you there's one or two things you should know.
• 00:28 First, you can move this chart wherever you want, just click and drag, but
• 00:32 also you can format the chart Excel gives you so
• 00:35 that it looks the way that you want it to look.
• 00:38 Charts are a great way to visually tell a story with your data.
• 00:42 And if you understand the basics of how charts work in Excel,
• 00:45 you'll be able to draw out those specific details that have the biggest impact.
• 00:50 We can'T add value until you understand the basics.
• 00:53 So let's just look at the basics in this lesson.
• 00:56 I'm going to move this chart.
• 00:58 And if you hold the Alt key while moving it, the chart snaps in line with
• 01:02 the column and row, so that's a nice way to align your chart.
• 01:06 And we can expand the size of the chart horizontally by clicking and
• 01:10 dragging the sizing handle.
• 01:12 You'll see that the chart looks a bit off at the end because it includes the total
• 01:17 column.
• 01:19 But if I click on the chart, it highlights the data that it has selected for
• 01:23 this chart.
• 01:24 And I can just click and drag the data to deselect the total, so
• 01:29 it's not included in the chart.
• 01:33 The main thing that you need to see is this chart plot area.
• 01:37 The plot area is in the middle of the chart, I can right-click and select data.
• 01:44 And this is almost the heart of it, it shows you the data range.
• 01:48 I don't think it needs to select row three here, it only really needs row four.
• 01:53 And that's good enough so we can change that.
• 01:55 And you can see that doesn't make any changes to our chart.
• 01:59 Now, we've got series California, Oregon, and Washington.
• 02:03 If I click on the series and hit Edit, it shows you the label.
• 02:09 It's also the label that you have down here at the bottom,
• 02:15 it shows you the range.
• 02:17 You can remove a series or you can add a series.
• 02:21 If we open up a shop in a different state for example, we can go into the data
• 02:25 source here and click on Add a series, and then tell it where to find the data.
• 02:31 Now, sometimes Excel interprets what you have incorrectly and
• 02:35 it puts data in the horizontal axis that you really don't want there.
• 02:40 And you might want to swap the axis data around.
• 02:43 Well, you can click on the switch row and column button.
• 02:48 Now doing it for this example, it looks pretty bad.
• 02:51 But this is still a nice feature for you to remember when you want to swap
• 02:55 the axis values without having to change your entire data set around.
• 03:01 So that's a nice feature to know.
• 03:03 But everything else is pretty much formatting at this point.
• 03:07 I can make our chart title dynamic.
• 03:10 What you do is click the title, and then type the formula in the formula toolbar,
• 03:15 equals and then click on a cell, that's very nice.
• 03:19 If I change the text in that field, my heading will update.
• 03:23 All right, what else can we format?
• 03:25 I'll click on an element in the chart.
• 03:27 Let's click on the sales axis on the left.
• 03:30 We right-click, Format Axis, and
• 03:32 the format task pane pops up on the right side.
• 03:36 And if you want to, you can close it with an X, but
• 03:39 all the chart elements you can edit are listed in this pull down here at the top.
• 03:44 Click it and you see chart options, text options, or
• 03:47 only chart options depending on which element you've chosen.
• 03:51 In the Text Options, you can choose fancy text or
• 03:55 you can choose the color transparency.
• 03:58 Outline if you want, make it look really nice.
• 04:01 Your chart options vary from this, fill in line, other effects, size, and position.
• 04:08 Let's look at our horizontal axis options we get even more options.
• 04:12 But one thing I see with my vertical axis, all my numbers have two decimals.
• 04:18 It gets it from the table above where I use the accounting format, and
• 04:22 I use two decimals.
• 04:24 So now that access mirrors same thing, but in my access options,
• 04:29 there's an option to change the number format.
• 04:33 I just want to get rid of the decimals here without changing my table.
• 04:36 So we can go in, go down to number, and change decimal places to 0.
• 04:42 And now I have no more decimals, that's much cleaner.
• 04:48 It's at this point I might decide, this line chart is okay, but
• 04:52 I'd rather try a column chart.
• 04:54 Well, we can change my chart type.
• 04:56 Just right-click on the plot area, change chart type, and
• 05:00 I can just click on the type that I want.
• 05:03 So there's column, click OK.
• 05:05 And that's easy enough, ahere's all my data in a column chart.
• 05:10 All the editing that I've done so far is still in place.
• 05:14 We can also format our series.
• 05:17 If we go over to the sidebar, click the pulldown, and
• 05:19 choose a series like California.
• 05:22 One of the things we can mess around with is this series overlap.
• 05:25 I can overlap the bars on the chart.
• 05:28 Let's try, say a 20% overlap.
• 05:33 So the lines kind of fold over one another.
• 05:36 Well, I don't really like that.
• 05:38 Let's try something else.
• 05:40 We can also control the gaps in between the columns.
• 05:44 So let's try something like we can type in 50.
• 05:47 Or we can use the slider and pull it to the left or right.
• 05:51 That closes the gaps up.
• 05:53 Okay.
• 05:56 I can also add chart elements, you can add more than what we already see here,
• 06:00 we can add data labels and it would add the values for each data item.
• 06:05 No, all you have to do to kind of try this out is mouse over the option and
• 06:09 you'll see it on the screen, but looking at it, data labels for
• 06:12 everything would be a bit chaotic.
• 06:15 So I'm not going to add that, but if you want to find those,
• 06:17 just click on your chart.
• 06:19 And then the quick add button is that plus sign on the right hand side.
• 06:24 It also sits under the chart design tab at the top.
• 06:27 And then add chart elements.
• 06:30 You can also quickly apply some alternate chart styles.
• 06:34 Click on the paintbrush to the right of the chart and it's all there for
• 06:37 you to try out.
• 06:40 And one last kind of fun tool is the chart filter.
• 06:44 I have my very fancy chart here.
• 06:46 I don't want to edit it.
• 06:47 But I would love to see just the California data if possible.
• 06:51 Well, of course it's possible, click in the chart filter, and
• 06:56 check off only California.I could also choose specific dates if I wanted to.
• 07:02 But let's go with just California.
• 07:05 Now I've got my very pretty nicely formatted chart only for
• 07:08 the California data.
• 07:09 And that's great.
• 07:11 But if I changed my mind, hey, we go back into the filter options,
• 07:16 Select all that apply, and it's back to normal.
• 07:21 So that's charts in a nutshell.
• 07:23 There are so many options for you to choose from,
• 07:26 to make your charts unique and compelling In fact,
• 07:29 we've got a whole course just on charts, but for now, those are the basics.
• 07:34 So enjoy.

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