How to Format a Chart in Excel
It is easy to make use of Excel's format functions in order to format your charts. In earlier versions of Excel, you had to code a lot of complex macros in order to format a chart. However, the complexity of these macros made it impossible for even small sheets of spreadsheets to be easily manipulated into a chart. The Mac tools were also far from user friendly. Even for those who could navigate the Mac computer environment, navigating Excel's format functions could prove to be quite a task. Fortunately, all this has now changed in version 10.
At the top of the formatter palette you will notice a drop down menu for "chart types". There are basically four types that you can choose from, which include bar charts, pie charts, histograms and scatter plots. If you hover your mouse cursor over any chart style, you will see its name displayed in the title area. The other data you have entered in the form will be shown below the chart style. You can then modify the data by selecting the appropriate properties for the chart and dragging the data boxes around to make changes. You can also use the handy toolbar to go right to the data you want to modify.
The easiest way to format a chart in Excel is to use the format toolbar. This toolbar will guide you through the process of how to format the chart. You can use the format toolbar to create a table, a bar chart, a pie chart or a histogram.
The next step is to select the appropriate range when you want to format the chart. The range can be negative or positive. If you want to format a negative range, simply add a minus sign to the data you want to format. On the other hand, if you are formatting a positive range, use a plus sign. This will give you options for filling up the chart with more or less data depending on the range you have chosen.
You should use custom indicators to format your charts if you want to include some additional information into the data points on the chart. If you choose to use custom indicators, you have to define the width and the height of the points. Using a formula, you can calculate the size of each point. This is useful when you have more data and you would like to keep the format smaller.
The third step to format a chart in Excel is to enter the text you want to appear on the chart. To do this, click the Insert Text button. This will place the text you want on the chart at the appropriate place on the vertical axis. Then, right-click the points so that you can see the value range that is between the left and the right of the point.
The fourth step is to enter a title for your chart. Use the Title option in the Formatting Toolbox. Enter a short name for your chart, such as Bar Charts in Excel. You can also use the keywords relevant to your chart such as Gann Charts in order to create a graphical presentation of the data that is displayed in your chart.
Finally, you can repeat the previous steps if you are going to format more than one chart. After all the steps above are done, you can go ahead and copy your formatted bar chart into a new file. Once you copy it, you can paste it on any website and customize it as you like. Or you can use it for printing. It would be a shame to use an expensive format that your customers will never use because you did not bother to format it correctly the first time.
