Creating a Basic Chart in Excel 2007

Transcription

1 Creating a Basic Chart in Excel 2007 A chart is a pictorial representation of the data you enter in a worksheet. Often, a chart can be a more descriptive way of representing your data. As a result, those viewing the information provided by your spreadsheets may find it easier to examine and understand a chart rather than raw numbers. Excel can display worksheet information in a variety of ways. Incorporating fonts, patterns, symbols, graphics and 3-D (three-dimensional effects), Excel s charting function is an extremely professional presentation tool. To create a chart, simply select the cells containing the data you want to chart and click the desired chart type. Once the chart appears in the worksheet, you will also see three different tabs for the Chart Tools that you can use to create or modify chart elements. Many of these are discussed as you progress through this handout. Changing Chart Types If the type of chart you select does not display the spreadsheet information appropriately, you can easily change it. The type of chart to use will depend on what you are trying to show. Line charts are better for showing trends, bar charts are better for showing volume, and pie charts are better for showing all of the portions of the total. Excel provides a variety of chart types and several subtypes within each major type. The following explains the uses for some of the chart types: Column Compare values over time or categories. This is a vertical presentation. The column shapes can be rectangular, cylindrical, conical, or pyramid-shaped. Line Compare continuous trends. Pie Compare series that make up the whole. Bar Compare values over time or categories. This is a horizontal presentation. As with the column chart type, you can choose from various bar shapes. Area Compare a continuous change in volume. XY (Scatter) Determine data patterns. Stock Display high-low-close data. To use this display, you must have at least three sets of data. Surface Display trends in values with a 3-D presentation and a continuous surface.

2 Doughnut Similar to the pie chart, but for more than one set of data points. Bubble Compare three values. The values are displayed similar to a scatter chart, but the points are presented in bubbles. Radar Determine patterns or trends with points matched up by lines. There are two-dimensional and three-dimensional choices. Three-dimensional charts can be more interesting to look at, but may be more difficult to interpret. To change the chart type, click on the chart to go into chart mode, and then use one of the following methods: Under Chart Tools, on the Design tab, in the Type group, click Change Chart Type, or right-click in the plot area of the chart and then click Change Chart Type. Working with Pie Charts A pie chart is another one of the chart type options that Excel provides. It is commonly used in business applications because it is particularly useful to display relative sizes (or percentage) of each piece of the sum total. For example, if you are writing a report about the importance of segments of your business, you may want to use the pie chart to show the various business segments. Pie charts are not like the other chart types. For example, column and line charts are excellent choices for visually showing more than one data series a table with multiple rows and columns of data. Pie charts only allow you to choose one data series usually the sum totals for a table, or one row or column of that table.

3 You may wish to supply further enhancement to your display by exploding or moving out a portion of the pie. This serves to draw the viewer s attention to that particular piece of the pie. You can only explode pie slices using the mouse. There is no keyboard equivalent. Changing the Chart Layout With one click, Excel will generate a chart using the standard defaults. You will typically want to modify the layout to create exactly the look you want. Excel also displays the Chart Tools option with tabs containing commands to manipulate items on the chart: The Design tab contains commands to help with the design of the chart, such as which data is displayed in the chart or the chart type. The Layout tab contains commands to assist with the layout or position of items in the chart. The Format tab contains commands to format the appearance or position of text in the chart. These layout components are commonly changed: Chart Titles Add a title for the chart. Axis Titles Add titles to the horizontal and vertical axes. Legend Include a legend and position it with the chart. Data Labels Include data labels on the chart. Data Table Display the chart data beneath the chart. Axes Include labels on the horizontal and vertical axes. Gridlines Include gridlines on the chart. Excel provides a variety of pre-built layouts that you can apply to your chart. You can further modify the chart with your own layout changes.

4 By default, Excel will place the chart in the same worksheet where the source data is located. You can move this chart to its own chart sheet, back to its original worksheet, or to a different worksheet. Moving and Resizing Charts You can move charts to any location on a worksheet. Typically, a chart is placed next to its source data. To move a chart, simply drag the chart using the mouse to its new location. Take care when placing the cursor while moving a chart, to ensure that you are not moving a component only within a chart by mistake. To move an entire chart, you must click on a blank area of the chart where no other chart components are located. Charts can also be made larger, smaller, or reshaped. To resize a chart, click and drag any of the handles around the chart. Every chart has eight of these handles: one in each corner, and four at mid-points between the corners. However, chart sheets are handled differently. Chart sheets can contain only one chart, and the chart cannot be moved unless the entire workbook window is moved. Similarly, the chart in a chart sheet cannot be resized except by resizing the entire workbook window. When you do this, Excel will automatically adjust the position of the chart within the window, and resize the chart to maintain the proportions of its length to the width.

5 Customizing Charts Formatting the Legend By default, the legend is positioned on the right side of the chart, with the items listed in the same sequence as they appear in the plot area. A legend is highly recommended for most charts to help readers identify each item in the plot area. Like the worksheet and the chart, a legend can be formatted. The formatting may be relatively simple such as changing the font, size, or style. The border and background fill can also be formatted in sophisticated ways as well. The Format Legend dialog box has several categories containing a variety of formatting options: Legend Options Select where the legend is to be positioned in the chart. To give the overall chart a more compact appearance, you can also choose to have the legend overlap the chart.

6 Fill - Legend Background Choose a background for the legend. Options include the common solid colour, a picture or texture, or a gradient fill. A gradient fill is a gradual colour tone change from one colour to another with various options. Border Colour Change the colour and style of the border around the legend.

7 Border Styles Choose how the border line will be displayed, including the width (thickness), whether it is dotted, dashed, or solid; single or double, and other style options Shadow Set and place a shadow behind the legend. Generally the legend background should match the rest of the chart. If the chart does have a pattern background, a common technique is to format the legend with a lighter tone.

8 Formatting an Axis It is important to note that the axis and the axis title are formatted separately. That is, these two components of the chart can have different font sizes, fill patterns, and whether they are even displayed on the chart or not. This topic is specific to the axis the vertical or horizontal line(s) on the outer edge of the chart, and the label text that is displayed at each interval along that axis line. For most charts, (except for pie charts), the axes should always be displayed. Without them, the chart is meaningless because the reader would not be able to see the value of each data point or bar. As with the legend, the horizontal (X) axis and vertical (Y) axis have a variety of formatting options that will help customize the chart to your needs. For example, Excel will prevent axis labels from overlapping each other if you choose a font size that is too large for the space available. It does so by skipping some of the labels. Axis Options Select different options for the tick marks and the axislabels for these tick marks on the axis line. This screen shows the settings for the horizontal (X) axis; it will show different settings for the vertical (Y) axis.

9 Number Select the number (or currency, accounting, date, percent, etc.) formatting for the axis labels. The format codes are the same ones used in the Format Cells dialog box. Fill Line Colour Line Style Shadow These are the same as the Format Legend dialog box. 3-D Format Create a three dimensional appearance for the axis

10 Alignment Select how the axis labels should be oriented in the axis: angled between 90 and -90 degrees, or with the letters stacked on top of each other. Formatting Chart Title Charts can have a chart title and an axis title for each of the axes. All three of these titles are optional. The formatting of the chart and axis titles can be changed with different fonts, sizes, and colours as an example. To ensure the chart is attractive but not distracting you should use consistent fonts, colours, and patterns with all of the text on the chart. The formatting options available for the titles are the standard ones available to text labels. You can change the fill pattern, border colour, border style, shadow, three dimensional formatting, and (vertical and horizontal) alignment. If you wish to change only the text, you can also click twice (with a pause between clicks) on the text. You can then use the keyboard keys to insert, delete, and move around the characters. If you wish to change the font, size, bold, italics, or underlining of the text, use the Font group in the Home tab to quickly make these changes. Depending on the formatting option, you can also use the Mini toolbar to change the format.

11 Formatting Data Series The data series is the core of your chart the actual column bars, lines, etc. showing the data. You can select each individual data series and format them according to your needs. Series Options Consists of three parts: Series Overlap Set the distance between each data point in the chart. The data points can be next to each other, separated with a gap, or overlap each other. Gap Width Set the distance between each group of bars. Plot Series On Choose which axis to scale from, the primary (on the left) or the secondary (on the right). Other formatting options include fill, border colour, border styles, shadow, and three dimensional formatting can also be applied to data series. Pay special attention to how you use colour in your charts if you are using a black and white printer or photocopier, you should change your chart colours to monochrome fill patterns instead. Otherwise, the printer will simply convert all of the colours to different shades of gray, which makes it difficult to distinguish between the different data series.

12 Formatting Plot and Chart Area By default, the plot area is a light gray colour, and the chart area is white. The formats of both of these areas can be changed with different colours, borders and patterns. Adding New Data New data is often added to the worksheet after a chart has been created. Naturally, you will then want to add this new data to the chart to keep it current. Excel provides several means to accomplish this: With the chart selected, under Chart Tools, on the Design tab, in the Data group, click Select Data to display the Select Data Source dialog box. Change the cell references in Chart data range and click OK. Copy the new data into the clipboard, and use Paste Special to paste the data into the chart. With the chart selected, drag the boundary of the data range selection box on the worksheet to include the new data. This is normally the quickest method. Applying Quick Styles to Charts Like other Excel objects, charts are formatted with colours and fill patterns. You can choose from a variety of built-in styles to quickly format the chart with a consistent set of colours and patterns; alternatively, use a style that you have created and saved Using Trendlines A common method of analyzing data is to create charts or graphs based on the data in a worksheet. The subject of creating and formatting charts has been extensively covered in this courseware. This module describes how to add trendlines to charts to not only analyze existing data, but also to help predict future values. Creating a Trendline Trendlines can easily be added to an existing chart when the chart is selected. Excel offers a choice of six types of trendlines based on different statistical calculation methods. These methods include:

13 Exponential Create a trendline by using the exponential equation. This option is not available when your data includes negative or zero values. Linear Create a trendline by using the linear equation y = mx + b. Logarithmic Create a trendline by using the logarithmic equation y = clnx + b. Polynomial Create a trendline by using the polynomial equation. A maximum order number must also be specified. Power Create a trendline by using the power equation. This option is not available when your data includes negative or zero values. Moving Average A moving average uses a specific number of points (set by the Period option), averages them, and uses the average value as a point in the line. A detailed description of the above methods is beyond the scope of this handout.

14 Choosing Trendline Options As well as choosing the type of trendline, you can also select an option to forecast (forward or backward) beyond the time period specified in your data. You can also change the colour of the trendlines to make the chart more readable. Summary This handout introduced you to working with charts. You looked at how to create a chart, how to change the type, layout and design of a chart, and how to manipulate a chart. You should now be able to: create charts change the chart type work with pie charts change the chart layout move and resize charts customize charts create and modify trendlines