Spotlight on Charting

It seems that these days we are bombarded with information from all directions. We have to deal with sales figures, production statistics and population numbers to name but a few. This data can be spread over many sources and can run to many rows. We analyse and extract information from these data sets to answer a stream of specific queries from both colleagues and managers.
Whilst we may be comfortable and familiar with the data in its raw format and can glean the necessary information for ourselves most other people will need to see this same data summarized and presented in an easy to understand format.
This is where the Excel charting feature steps in.

There is a wide variety of chart types in Excel from a simple line graph through to 3D area graphs and cylindrical ones. There is even the lesser-known Bubble graph, which I can honestly say I have never seen used in action. The problem with Excel charting is that even if you have been shown how to create a chart the end result can look very bland and unfortunately the colour scheme leaves a lot to be desired. However, there are a number of tips that you can use to produce charts that stand out from the crowd, and would not look out of place in a company brochure.

Charting Tips

• Use the Column, Line and Pie chart types as often as possible
  These are easily recognized and understood and look the most professional
• Change the standard colour scheme to anything but the default colours
  This can either be done by double clicking on a section of your graph and choosing a new colour each time, or by changing the standard scheme in Tools + Options + Colours
• When using the Pie graph always add the Data Labels to specify the percentages
  This is done in the Data Labels tab when you double click on the Pie Chart
  

• When using the Line graph double click on each line and choose to make it thicker and the Points larger
  
  

As you can see from the examples above the default charts can quite quickly be formatted to look completely different from everybody else’s graphs and if you use the same formatting techniques each time your charts will become recognizable and consistent and your data more readable.

I cover creating Charts from scratch in my Excel Introduction course and I always tell my delegates that the main tip I can give them is to double click on every element of the chart you can see and have a good look around the tabs at the top of the dialogue boxes. Everything can be formatted from the number style, the rotation of your Pie charts right through to which direction your number markers are drawn, so there is really no excuse for boring run of the mill charts to be stuck up on your walls again!