Graphing With Excel Tutorial

Lisa Peck

Use the following step by step tutorials to create charts (Excel's term for graphs). Please note: this site is a work in progress. I will first put up the basic steps and then add to it as time allows.

Basics:

Entering Data Into Spreadsheet Cells

Chart Wizard Step 2: Source Data This step involves selecting the data that will be graphed and data that will be used as part of x-axis. The columns of data are called series. You must select the series of data that will be part of the chart (graphed). To do this, you select a series in the dialog window and then click and drag the cells on the spreadsheet that are in the series that you want to graph. If only one series is to be used, you must remove the other series by selecting them and clicking remove. If you want to use a series as a subset label of the x-axis, follow the "category (X) axis label step.

Note: more detailed, step by step chart wizard tutorials will be added to this page.

 

Fancy Stuff: double clicking on any element of a chart will bring up an options dialog window. The options vary for different chart elements. Try clicking on different elements and change some of the options. Explore and have fun!

Changing text on chart: color, size, font, style, alignment, rotate from vertical to horizontal

Changing colors of background or chart elements (bars, columns, pie pieces)

Adding pictures to a chart (clip art, images from internet, photos, word art)

Saving chart to be displayed on a webpage