Excel Charts

Charts are visual representations of worksheet data. A chart often makes it easier to understand the data in a worksheet. Because a chart presents a picture, charts are particularly useful for summarizing a series of numbers and their interrelationships. Excel provides you with the tools to create a wide variety of highly customizable charts.


TYPES OF CHARTS

There are various chart types available in MS Excel as shown in below.
  • Column: Column chart shows data changes over a period of time or illustrates comparisons among items.
  • Line: A line chart shows trends in data at equal intervals.
  • Pie: A pie chart shows the size of items that make up a data series, proportional to the sum of the items. It always shows only one data series and is useful when you want to emphasize a significant element in the data.
  • Bar: A bar chart illustrates comparisons among individual items.
  • Area: An area chart emphasizes the magnitude of change over time.
  • X Y Scatter: An xy (scatter) chart shows the relationships among the numeric values in several data series, or plots two groups of numbers as one series of xy coordinates.
  • Stock: This chart type is most often used for stock price data, but can also be used for scientific data.
  • Surface: A surface chart is useful when you want to find optimum combinations between two sets of data. As in a topographic map, colors and patterns indicate areas that are in the same range of values.
  • Radar: A radar chart compares the aggregate values of a number of data series.




CREATING CHART

    To create charts follow below steps.
  • Select the data for which you want to create chart.
  • Choose Insert Tab.
  • Select a chart type from the Chart group.
    Or
    Choose Recommended Chart option for select chart type according to your data.




EDITING CHART

You can edit the chart after you have created it.
  • Click on chart
  • It will display Design tab for editing as illustrated below.




MAKING A PIE CHART

For an example we’ll need some actual data to chart so generate a list of monthly expenses such as this one. Select the data that you wish to chart (including the labels: TV, Phone, etc...).


  • From the Insert tab, click on “Pie” and select the appropriate type of pie chart
  • You should get something that looks like this….