|
Creating charts isn't a one-step process, but we've made it easier to complete all of the steps. Get started with a chart that's recommended for your data, and then finalize it in a few more steps so your chart looks professional and has all the details you want to show. |
|---|
Tips before you start
- Let Excel recommend a chart for you If you're overwhelmed by the many chart options, try getting started with an Excel recommended chart.
- Fine-tune your chart without searching through menus You can find chart elements such as titles and data labels, change the look and layout of your chart, and define the data you want to show without having to search through menus and formatting options.
- Copy your chart to other programs While you can create charts directly in other Office programs like Word and PowerPoint, copying charts from Excel into another program, with or without a link to the data in Excel, is often a fast and effective way to include charts in the other files.
Create your chart
| Available chart types | If you're new to charting, start by exploring the charts you can create in Excel and learn more about the best ways to arrange your data for each of them. |
|---|---|
| Select data for a chart | Then, enter your data the way it should be for the chart you want, and select it to create your chart. |
| Create a chart | When you're ready to create your chart, choose from Excel's recommended charts to quickly find a chart type that fits your data. |
| Create a PivotChart | If you have a lot of data and want to interact with that data in your chart, create a standalone PivotChart without creating a PivotTable first. It has interactive filtering controls that let you analyze a subset of your data. Excel can recommend a PivotChart for your data, and you don't need to create a PivotTable to go with it. |
Fine-tune your chart
| Add or remove titles in a chart | Replace the placeholder chart title with an appropriate chart title. Format it the way you want, or move it to a different place in the chart. |
|---|---|
| Add or remove data labels in a chart | Make a chart easier to understand by adding data labels that show details about a data series or its individual data points. |
| Add, change, or remove error bars in a chart | Error bars show margins of error at a glance. You can add them to all data points in a data series as a standard error amount, a percentage, or a standard deviation. |
| Change the color or style of a chart | If standard colors and chart styles don’t strike your fancy, it’s easy to change both. You can quickly pick what you like from a wide range of options in the color and style galleries. |
| Format elements of a chart | A formatting task pane makes it easier to format any chart element. To open it, right-click any chart element. |
| Save a custom chart as a template | If you plan to use the chart you’ve created again, you can save it as a template that you can apply just like any other chart. |
Change the data in your chart
| Add a data series to your chart | When you enter more data in your worksheet, you can quickly include it in your chart. |
|---|---|
| Change the data series in a chart | To change the data that’s shown in your chart, use chart filters to show or hide data series. You can also edit and rearrange the data in your data series by using the Select Data Source box. |
Use your chart in another program
| Copy an Excel chart to another Office program | To show an Excel chart in a PowerPoint presentation, a Word document, or an Outlook message, copy it, and use the paste options in the other Office program to insert the chart in a number of ways. |
|---|---|
| Insert a chart from an Excel spreadsheet into Word | When you don’t have much data to plot, try creating a chart directly in Word—no need to go to Excel first. However, if you have a lot of data to plot, or if your data changes regularly and you want to keep your chart up to date, consider creating the chart in Excel, and copying it into your document. |
Analyze and visualize your data
| Create charts with Recommended Charts | If you're not sure which chart type to use, let Excel analyze your data and suggest chart types that best represent your information. |
|---|---|
| Use slicers to filter charts | Use slicers to quickly filter the data displayed in PivotTables and PivotCharts, making it easier to explore and analyze your data. |
| Create dashboard-style reports | Combine charts, PivotTables, slicers, and conditional formatting to build interactive dashboards that help you monitor and analyze data. |
| Use Copilot to analyze and visualize data | Use Copilot in Excel to identify trends, summarize insights, and help create data visualizations from your workbook data. |