How to Make Professional and Stylish Charts in Excel

how to make excel charts

The use of programs such as Excel is widespread, both in the academic field and in the workplace. For students and professionals, make charts in excel it is a very visual and effective way of presenting your data and information to make decisions or draw conclusions based on them.

It is shown that any capture or representation of statistical data It is much more effective if done with the right graphics. The more striking and eloquent, the better. For this reason, knowing how to design these graphics and present them properly can often make the difference between success or failure in an exhibition or job.

But before exploring the aesthetic and visual possibilities of these graphs, it is necessary to know well the graphs that it offers us. Excel and how to handle the data so that the graphs interpret them correctly and effectively:

Types of Excel charts

The purpose of a graph is none other than to represent certain information in a visual and summarized way. In this way it is easier to interpret what the data reflects and make the decision-making process easier. These are the proposals that Excel offers us:

Bar chart

bar chart

How to make charts in Excel

It is one of the most used, because through them the person who views it gets a lot of information in a summarized way at a single glance. How to create this type of graphs? You have to follow these steps:

  1. First of all, you have to select in the excel page the data that we want to reflect in the bar chart and copy them to the clipboard.
  2. Then we click "insert" and then we select "Recommended Graphics", where different options will be displayed in the sidebar on the left. In this case we choose the bars.
  3. Excel will place the data copied from the clipboard into the worksheet into the bar chart.

Once the chart has been generated, we can resize it, move it to different locations within the sheet, and even copy it to a different worksheet. You can also change the chart title by double-clicking on it and typing a new name.

But since we want the chart to be stylish and professional looking, we need to use some tools to improve. For example, you can change the color and style of the bar chart like so:

We select our Excel bar chart and click on the tab of "change colors", which is usually represented by a brush icon to the right of the graph when we click on it. The menu that appears allows us choose a different cosmetic style for the graphic. Just hover over it and hover your mouse over each style to preview it.

When the columns change orientation, they become bars. A bar chart it can be presented in grouped form or stacked or adding 100% of the represented data. This option can be a very effective method of representing a certain class of data to the public.

Line graph

excel line chart

Excel line chart

This type of chart is most commonly used. to see trends when working with more abundant values. In these cases, the bar or column charts are insufficient, as they are illegible. Instead, a line graph offers the accumulated information more efficiently.

This is how you design a line graph with Excel:

  1. First, we enter the data we want to represent in the graph in an Excel table and select it.
  2. Then we go to the options bar, to the tab "Insert".
  3. There we choose "Make a line graph" In Excel.
  4. Various options are displayed, grouped into two categories: 2D and 3D. Both area and line. It is about choosing the one that interests us the most.

The area charts they are an alternative way to represent a line chart while incorporating the visual punch of bar or column charts.

Pie or donut chart

excel pie chart

How to make pie charts in Excel

One of the most popular graphic representations, especially indicated to represent percentage distributions, for example. The pie charts show the size of the elements of a data series in proportion to the sum of the elements. Thus, partial data in a pie chart is displayed as percentages of the entire pie chart.

It is recommended to use these charts when there are no more than seven values ​​and none of them are zero or negative. As in the other options, they can be produced in both 2D and 3D formats.

Some people prefer (it's a matter of taste) to use the donut chart as a variant or alternative to the pie chart. Like this, it serves to show the relationship of the parts with a whole, although it may contain more than one series of data. However, they are not as visual or easy to interpret as the first ones.

Scatter chart and bubbles

bubble chart

bubble chart

Also known as XY Type Chart, the dispersion ones help us to capture data organized in columns and rows of a spreadsheet. Place the X values ​​in one row or column and the corresponding Y values ​​in adjacent rows or columns.

Thanks to the resource of the two value axes (a horizontal X axis and a vertical Y axis), it is possible to represent irregular intervals or groupings, something impossible with other graphs on this list. Scatter plots are widely used in the scientific and statistical fields. They can be combined with straight or curved lines that join the scattered points indicating trends.

Meanwhile, the bubble charts they are an even more visual way of developing a scatter plot. These bubbles can be represented in 2D or 3D, with a depth axis that makes them look like real spheres on our screen.

stock chart

quotes chart

Typical "candlestick" chart

Very famous within the world of economics and finance, where it is also known as candlestick chart. As its name indicates, these charts are ideal for showing fluctuations in stock prices, which is why they are used in the stock market, although this is not their only use.


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