Welcome to Excelling with Excel

Working Smarter

Charts
You are ready for the assignments
when you finish, and the database and quiz.

The fun part of Excel! And, so easy to do too.
Charts give a visual representation of information.
Charts in Excel are just too easy to do.
Be sure to check both sheet tabs of the sample.

The basic steps involve doing the following:

• select data
• click on the chart wizard icon
• select a chart type
• follow the wizard's four steps
• and that is it

When you complete a chart, it appears on your spreadsheet. You can move the chart by clicking on the chart, holding the click and moving the mouse.

You can also change your chart, even after it is done. Select your chart, click on the chart wizard and select a different chart format.

Some things you can do with charts - you can select only the data you want to display by holding the control key down and dragging through the information you want to show AND you can change the colors in the chart by double clicking on any part of the chart and following the dialog box. TIP: try the fill effects.

TIP: the chart you chose MUST display the information (data) in a meaningful way so everyone understands the data immediately! You will find that most companies use bar charts and not pie charts.

AGAIN, charts are easy. Select the data, click on the chart wizard, go through the four wizard steps and you are done.

The wizard four steps are:

• step one: select the chart type
• step two: chart data - you can select rows or columns. The default is rows as this is what most chart users do
• step three: a tabbed dialog box - you want to be sure to work with the title tab - this is where you can give your chart a title and labels. You will have to play with the labels to see which you like the best with your data.
  
  If you are doing a pie chart, be sure to work with the data labels tab in step three.
• step four: select finish and you are done.
  ........

Diagrams

I know the database and quiz are next.