Excel TutorialExcel TutorialFocus on Making ChartsFocus on Making Charts

Prepared by Professor PatMarch 30, 2008

For Women and Computers Class at SCSU

The Excel Window

Click in any cell to enter words or numbers

The Quick Access Toolbar

Click here to create a new sheet

Intro – Name of this Worksheet

Click here to go to the Sheet about Charts

To Make a Chart

1. Highlight/Select all the cells you want to use – be sure to include headings you will need. Here, click in Family Income cell, hold down mouse button & drag until entire area is outlined.

2. Click the Insert tab to display the ribbon with Chart Options

Click Insert to select

Chart type

Click on the kind of Chart you want – bars,

pie, line, etc.

To Make Simple Bar Chart1. Click on Column 2. Choose simple 2-D Bars

After these 2 clicks, your Chart will magically appear – see next slide.

Chart automatically created by Excel – not the prettiest, so we might want to make some changes

Legend

Plot Area

Horizontal Axis

If you don’t see this Ribbon, click on Chart Tools

Note the 4 headed arrow. Use this to click and drag chart to a different place.

Click Arrow by Quick Layout to Get Choices

Choose this one to make

space for Title

The Finished Chart – Title Added and Colors Changed To change Bar Colors

Right click on left most bar (originally blue), choose Format Data Series, then Fill, then Solid Fill, then pick color. Repeat for 2nd bar from left & choose different color.

To color Chart AreaClick in upper right corner. Click on Format in Menu bar & Chart Tools. At left end of ribbon, click on Format Selection under Chart Area. Under Fill, click Gradient Fill, then Arrow by Preset Colors to pick color. Click on Border Color & select color. Click on Border Style, increase Border Width to 3 pt. Click on Rounded Corners at bottom.

To make text in Legend and on Axis bold, right click on the text, choose Font, then Bold.

We could have chosen a Line Chart - an appropriate alternative with this data.

Source of Data used in Chart

Trotter, Andrew, "Getting Up to Speed: U.S. schools have come a long way since connecting to the Internet was their chief technology challenge," Education Week, 3/29/07. Citing National Center for Education Statistics, 2006 as source of data in chart. Online at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/03/29/30tcpolicy.h26.html

Article includes a much more sophisticated and beautiful chart for this data than any displayed here.