How to Make a Chart or Graph in Excel – Guide
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It has calculation or calculation capabilities, graphical tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Excel is part of the Microsoft Office software suite.
How to Make a Chart or Chart in Excel
Enter your data into Excel.
First, you need to enter your data into Excel. You may have exported the data from somewhere else, such as marketing software or a research tool. Or maybe you are entering it manually. In the example below, in Column A I have a list of answers to the question “Has inbound marketing demonstrated ROI?” and in Columns B, C and D I have the answers to the question “Does your company have a formal marketing agreement for sales?” For example, column C, row 2 illustrates that 49% of people who have a service level agreement (SLA) also say that inbound marketing has demonstrated ROI.
Choose between chart and graph options.
In Excel, your options for charts and tables include column (or bar) charts, line charts, pie charts, scatter charts, and more. See how Excel identifies each one in the top navigation bar, as illustrated below. To find chart and chart options, select Insert. (To help figure out which chart type is best for visualizing your data, check out our free ebook, How to Use data visualization to win over your audience.)
Highlight your data and insert the desired chart into the worksheet.
In this example, I will use a bar chart to visually present the data. To make a bar chart, highlight the data and include the X and Y axis titles. Then go to the Insert tab and in the charts section, click the column icon. Choose the graphic you want from the pop-up window that appears. In this example, I chose the first two-dimensional column option only because I prefer the flat bar graph to the 3D look. See the resulting bar chart below.
Toggle the data on each axis if necessary.
If you want to switch what appears on the X and Y axes, right-click the bar chart, click Select Data, and click Toggle Row/Column. This will rearrange which axes carry which data in the list shown below. When finished, click OK at the bottom. The resulting graph would look like this.
Adjust the layout and colors of your data.
To change the legend and legend layout, click the bar chart, then click the Chart Design tab. Here, you can choose which layout you prefer for the chart title, axis titles, and legend. In my example shown below, I clicked on the option that displayed smoother bar colors and legends below the chart. To further format the caption, click on it to reveal the Format Caption sidebar, as shown below. Here, you can change the fill color of the legend, which in turn will change the color of the columns themselves. To format other parts of the chart, click on them individually to reveal a corresponding Format window.
Change the size of your chart’s axes legend and labels.
When you first create a chart in Excel, the size of the axis and legend labels may be a little small, depending on the type of chart or chart you choose (bar, pie, line, etc.) Once you have created your chart, you will want meat up these labels so that they are readable. To increase the size of your chart’s labels, click on them individually, and instead of revealing a new Format window, click again on the Home tab in Excel’s top navigation bar. Then use the font type and size dropdown fields to expand or collapse the chart legend and axis labels to your liking.
Change the Y-axis measurement options if desired.
To change the type of measurement shown on the Y-axis, click the Y-axis percentages on your chart to reveal the Format Axis window. Here, you can decide if you want to display the units located on the Axis Options tab, or if you want to change whether the Y-axis shows percentages to 2 decimal places or 0 decimal places. Since my chart automatically sets the maximum Y-axis percentage to 60%, I might want to manually change it to 100% to represent my data on a more universal scale. To do this, I can select the Maximum two fields option below Limits in the Format Axis window and change the value from 0.6 to 1. The resulting graph would change to look like the one below (I increased the font size of the Y-axis through Home guide, so you can see the difference):
Reorder your data if you wish.
To sort the data so that respondents’ responses appear in reverse order, right-click on the graph and click Select Data to reveal the same options window you called up in Step 3 above. This time click on up and down arrows, as shown below, to reverse the order of your data on the chart. If you have more than two rows of data to adjust, you can also rearrange them in ascending or descending order. To do this, highlight all your data in the cells above the chart, click Data and select Sort as shown below. You can choose to sort from lowest to highest or highest to lowest depending on your preference. The resulting graph would look like this:
Give your chart a title.
Now comes the fun and easy part: naming your chart. By now, you must have noticed how to They do this. Here’s a simple clarifier. Right after making your chart, the title that appears will likely be “Chart Title” or something similar, depending on which version of Excel you are using. To change this label, click on “Graph Title” to reveal a typing cursor. You can then freely customize the title of your chart. When you have a title you like, click Home in the top navigation bar and use the font formatting options to give your title the emphasis it deserves. See these options and my final chart below:
Export your chart or table.
When your chart or graph is exactly the way you want it, you can save it as an image without taking screenshots in the spreadsheet. This method will give you a clean image of your chart that can be inserted into a PowerPoint presentation, Canva document, or any other visual template. To save your Excel chart as a photo, right-click on the chart and select Save as Image. In the dialog box, name your graphic photo, choose where to save it on your computer, and choose the file type you want to save it as. In this example I am saving it as a JPEG in the desktop folder. Finally, click Save. You will have a clear photo of your chart or table that can be added to any visual design.
Final note
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