Create a chart in Excel

With Excel you can put all kinds of data in tables. But sometimes it is more fun or clearer to present the information in a graph. Think of a pie chart, pivot chart or bar chart. You do need a data table for this. You can make your own, but you can also use our exercise table to use. It lists the months of the year and the average temperatures in those months.

Create a chart in Excel like this:

• Select the table in its entirety. To do this, left click on cell A1 and hold down the mouse button. Then drag the mouse pointer to the end of the table. So that’s cell M4 in our exercise table.
• Click on the tab Insert.
• The ‘Graphs’ group contains a number of options. Select the chart type that fits your data.
• Need advice? In the ‘Graphs’ group, click the button Recommended charts. You’ll see a selection of charts that Excel thinks are appropriate for your data table. Click on a chart on the left and you will see a preview on the right side of the pane. click on OK to choose a chart type. We don’t do this.
• In the ‘Graphs’ group we choose a line graph. click on Insert line or area chart .
• Excel shows several options for a line chart. Hold the mouse pointer over a picture for a while and the name of the graph will appear with a short description.
• We click Line with markers.
• The chart is directly in the datasheet. We want to put the chart on its own tab so that the table is not visible. That’s why we click in the top right of the Ribbon on Move chart.
• click on New leaf and give the sheet a name. We choose ‘Graph’.
• click on OK.

The graph is now presented on its own sheet called ‘Grafiek’. Would you like to use this elsewhere? Then save the chart as an image.