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Power excel 2016 with mrexcel Master Pivot Tables, Subtotals, Charts, VLOOKUP, IF, Data Analysis in Excel 2010–2013 (Bill Jelen) (z-lib.org).pdf
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PART 4: MAKING THINGS LOOK GOOD

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Additional Details: Dragging the blue outline can simplify the task of creating many charts as described in the previous topic. Create the first chart and copy it. When you select the first chart, one customer is outlined in blue.

Figure 1073 Drag the blue box to a new row.

Drag the edge of the blue box to a new customer. The chart will update. Note that if you drag the blue box, the green box will move with the blue box.

Figure 1074 Drop the blue box on Exxon and the chart redraws.

 

EXCEL 2013 OFFERS EASY CHART FORMATTING

 

 

After you create a chart in Excel 2013, click the Paintbrush icon to the right of the chart. Ten designs

 

will appear. Choose a design. There is nothing particularly new here - all of the formatting choices were

 

available in Excel 2010. What is new is the combinations of the formatting choices. In one episode of the

 

 

MrExcel podcast, I set out to replicate a 2013 style in 2010. It was possible, but it took 56 steps.

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Figure 1075 Quickly apply a style in Excel 2013 using the Paintbrush icon.

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BEGIN EXCEL 2010 FORMATTING ON DESIGN

Problem: I created a chart in Excel 2010. I want to format the chart. Where do I begin?

Strategy: There are two galleries on the Design tab. The Chart Layouts gallery will offer four to twelve thumbnails depending on your chart type. These are twelve thumbnails out of 50,000 possible ways to format the chart. At best, you might be able to find a thumbnail that gets close to what you want.

There are a few really good thumbnails. If you have a column chart, the eighth thumbnail creates a histo- gram. Most people can not find the Gap Width setting to create this type of chart.

Next, the Chart Styles gallery offers 48 formats for your chart. Column 1 provides grayscale charts which are good if you have a monochrome printer. Row 6 provides dark backgrounds which work great with

PowerPoint. Column 2 offers multi-color charts. Columns 3 through 8 offer shades of the six theme colors.

Figure 1076 Choose from colors on the Styles gallery.

Additional Details. You can choose new sets of complementary colors by using the Theme or Color drop- down on the Excel 2010 Page Layout tab.

THE CHART LAYOUT TAB IS MISSING IN EXCEL 2013

Problem: What happened to the Layout tab in Excel 2013? This is where I did most of my chart formatting in Excel 2010.

Strategy: Most of the choices from the Layout tab are in the Plus icon to the right of the Excel 2013 chart.

Toggle an item on with the checkbox. Hover over an item to see a triangle leading to a flyout with more a few popular choices.

Figure 1077 In Excel 2013, format most chart elements from the “+” icon.

It is somewhat odd that not everything from the Excel 2010 layout tab is in this menu. If you need to add Up/Down Bars or High-Low lines, you have to go to the Design tab and open the Add Chart Element dropdown.

PART 4: MAKING THINGS LOOK GOOD

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FORMATTING CHARTS IN EXCEL 2010 WITH LAYOUT

I try to do most of my chart formatting on the Layout tab of the ribbon.

“Try” is the important word there.

There are 15 dropdowns on the layout tab that cover the major elements of the chart. So far, so good.

Figure 1078 Dropdowns to format the chart.

Each dropdown leads to a tiny menu with a few popular choices. Sometimes the choices in the menu are useful. Other times, what you really need is not in the menu. However, the bottom item in each menu is for More Choices. Choose this item to get to the Format dialog box with all of the choices.

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Figure 1079 The label settings that you remember from Excel 2003 are hidden beneath the More Data Label Options.

I assume that 90% of the time that I go to the Layout tab, I will have to skip the menu choices and go to the More Options choice.

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LEGEND AT THE TOP

Problem: Excel always adds a legend on the right side of the chart. Visualization gurus say the legend should be at the top or left of the chart. You don’t even need a legend for a one-series chart.

Strategy: Use Layout, Legend, Show Legend at Top.

Figure 1080 Move the legend to the top.

When you have an Excel 2010 chart with a single series, Excel adds the series name as both the title and the legend. This is definitely overkill. Click the Legend and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. This is fixed in Excel 2013 - a chart with a single series will not have a legend.

Figure 1081 Delete the legend when you have only one series.

THE 2010 FORMAT DIALOG BOX IS A TASK PANE IN 2013

If you would double-click any chart element in Excel 2010, a Format dialog box would appear. Do the same thing in Excel 2013 and a Task Pane appears on the right side of the screen. While the 2010 Format dialog box was labelled with many categories, the 2013 task pane is labelled with a series of icons.

My general rule: always start with the Column Chart icon - the best choices are often there.

Figure 1082 Each circled item shows different choices below.