How to Make Graphs in Excel

Charts and graphs are an effective way of making data more visually engaging, but you should understand how to properly create them in order to achieve the best results.

First step to creating a graph is populating your spreadsheet with data you wish to visualize – either imported from another software program or manually entered.

Creating a chart in Excel

Charts are visual representations of data that serve to effectively convey information. There are various kinds of charts, such as bar, line and pie graphs; each serves a distinct purpose when choosing which type to use for your data. Once selected, customize it further according to your requirements.

When creating a chart in Excel, the initial step should be selecting which data should be displayed. You can do this by either dragging and clicking your mouse across an entire data group or individually selecting cells; alternatively you can click and drag your chart toolbar around on screen and position it accordingly. Afterward, add a title for your chart.

Use the Insert Chart dialog box to select a chart type, which will open up a folder containing all available chart templates – use this folder to find one that suits your data! If none do so use Change Chart Type command or context menu to change its type.

Excel makes creating charts easy. Simply select the type of chart that suits your purpose, add data, adjust its layout, colors and legend as needed and modify any displayed axes of your chart if any data changes occur. Any linked Office documents or PowerPoint presentations that use that chart will also update when its data changes – making the process seamless!

Once your data has been entered, select and change its title in the Chart Tools Design tab. From there you can also add chart elements such as axis titles and data labels by using the Add Chart Element button; choose your background color via selecting from Themes tab; add chart elements using Add Chart Element button and even apply themes by selecting designs from Themes tab.

Creating a line chart

Excel line graphs can provide an effective way of visualizing trends over time. For instance, when comparing sales figures of two products over time, using a line graph to show differences can allow you to determine whether one product is increasing or decreasing in popularity. To create one yourself, first select your data to represent before clicking Insert > Line in your spreadsheet’s Insert tab – your line graph should appear automatically! You can further customize its appearance using Design toolbar > Chart Styles button.

Another approach to creating a line graph is manually creating it using your data. To do so, select the cells with the information that needs to be represented on the graph and set its y-axis scale accordingly; percentage or real will help your graph better illustrate changes as they happen.

To add a title to your graph, simply click on the white space at the top. A text box will open, allowing you to enter a title describing the trend being tracked. Chart titles play an essential part in helping readers comprehend your graph; for instance if you are charting product trends over time for three different products then using “Product Trends by Month” would serve to highlight it more effectively.

Excel charts by default don’t present an attractive look, which may hinder their professional appearance. To enhance them, customize colors, axes and shading. Furthermore, font size of axes and title of chart may also be altered; you can even move graph from Excel worksheet into Word or PowerPoint presentation with ease by simply selecting it before copying or moving – this ensures full reformatting abilities of chart.

Creating a bar chart

If you have an enormous amount of data that needs to be represented as a bar graph, Excel makes this task simple. Simply launch Excel and click on the blank spreadsheet button; from the list of recommended charts, select bar graph from its selection list; once created, move or leave where it sits; you can even enlarge its size by dragging its corners.

To create a bar chart in Excel, first highlight the data you wish to display as graphed rows or columns containing that data. Individual cells can be selected using click and drag or by holding down Control while selecting. When your selections have been made, click on Insert tab in toolbar then choose your chart type from drop-down list.

Excel allows you to choose from several types of bar graphs, including clustered and stacked. Clustered graphs display categories in separate lines side-by-side while stacked ones show all data as one multicolored bar per category. Once you select your graph type, simply hover your cursor over it until a completed example appears on the right-hand side of the screen.

Excel makes creating bar graphs simple, yet you may wish to customize some features of your bar chart further. For instance, changing its colors by choosing from pre-made designs in the Design tab or right-clicking on your chart and choosing Format data series allows you to change them along with features like opacity or gradients.

Change the order of data categories in a bar graph by altering their sort order on the worksheet, or use the Format Axis menu within the chart to make changes to both vertical and horizontal axes – label options for these are extensive, while you can even change gap width between bars or decimal places via grid line settings.

Creating a pie chart

Making a pie chart in Excel is an easy and efficient way to present data visually, providing an effective means of showing percentages or comparing two data sets. Pie charts also make for great trend graphs over time – just be wary not to overpower other parts of your data with too large of an image!

Step one in creating a pie chart is selecting the data that you wish to display. Next, navigate to Insert tab > Charts and choose your chart type; pie, bar, line and scatter charts can all be found here. After making your selection, your chart will automatically be added into your worksheet.

Once your chart has been inserted, the next step in formatting it is selecting various options from its Chart Design and Format tabs to edit its design and format. For instance, changing colors, adding backgrounds or choosing fill colors for labels are all options available to you; you could even make it look 3-D and add shadow effects to highlight data.

Labeling data points on a pie chart can make understanding your data easier. Labels can be added directly to individual slices or the data series as a whole; their position can also be altered accordingly (outside or inside of slices) as needed. Furthermore, you can highlight certain slices and analyze data through using “Point Explosion” option of Series Option tab.

If you have a large set of data, creating a stacked pie chart can make reading it much simpler. This approach works especially well when there are more than three categories within your data set, enabling you to quickly identify trends which would otherwise be hard to spot in an individual pie graph. Furthermore, by combining pie and line charts together to form combination charts which more effectively display trends than just using pie graphs alone.