Creating Charts in Excel

Titles and Labels

• Click on the title or label you want to change.
• A box will appear around the selected item. We chose to change the formatting for our Chart Title.

  

• Click on Format.
• Click on Selected Chart Title.

  

  Or, right click on your mouse and click Format Chart Title.
• Make the desired changes using the option tabs available in the Format dialog box. a. Patterns: changes the style and colors of the items border and area fill color b. Font: changes font style, color, and/or format of the text in the item box c. Alignment: changes the text's alignment in the item box
• Click on OK.
• Excel will make the changes to the item.

  

Data Points

Data Points are the plotted areas that represent specific data. Excel automatically assigns colors to data points, series, and other chart elements. You may want to change the colors of the data points so that they better represent the data you are presenting. For example, we felt that the default colors for the slices in our pie chart did not best represent our data. We felt that choosing red for red, orange for orange, etc. would better represent our M&M data. The directions that follow demonstrate how we changed the colors for our pie chart slices, or data points. You can use similar methods to change the colors for data points in other types of charts.

• Click on the area that you want to change. You may have to click twice.
• The area will be highlighted by black boxes surrounding the area.

  

• Click on Format.
• Click on Selected Data Point.

  

  Or, right click the mouse and click on Format Data Point.
• Under the Patterns tab, make the necessary changes to the border and color fill. We chose red to represent our red M&M's. a. Data Labels: allows you to choose want labels you want to represent your data. b. Options: gives you other options regarding your chart.
• Click on OK when you are done making your changes.

  

• Repeat steps 1-6 for other data points.
• Excel will automatically make the changes to each data point as you go.

Using Legend Keys to Change Data Points

You can also use your legend, if you chose to display one, to change the colors of the Data Points. Doing so may help you keep straight what data you are changing. Keep in mind that legends keys only allow you change the color of the data points, nothing else.

• Open the legend key you want to change by double-clicking on it.

  

• Make the desired changes in the formatting dialog box. We chose orange.
• Click on OK.

  

• Repeat steps 1-3 to make other changes to other Data Points.