How to Create Charts in Excel: Types & Step by Step Examples

A picture is worth of thousand words; a chart is worth of thousand sets of data. In this tutorial, we are going to learn how we can use graph in Excel to visualize our data.

What is a chart?

A chart is a visual representative of data in both columns and rows. Charts are usually used to analyse trends and patterns in data sets. Let’s say you have been recording the sales figures in Excel for the past three years. Using charts, you can easily tell which year had the most sales and which year had the least. You can also draw charts to compare set targets against actual achievements.

We will use the following data for this tutorial.

Note: we will be using Excel 2013. If you have a lower version, then some of the more advanced features may not be available to you.

Item	2012	2013	2014	2015
Desktop Computers	20	12	13	12
Laptops	34	45	40	39
Monitors	12	10	17	15
Printers	78	13	90	14

Types of Charts in MS Excel

Different scenarios require different types of charts. Towards this end, Excel provides a number of chart types that you can work with. The type of chart that you choose depends on the type of data that you want to visualize. To help simplify things for the users, Excel 2013 and above has an option that analyses your data and makes a recommendation of the chart type that you should use.

The following table shows some of the most commonly used Excel charts and when you should consider using them.

S/N	CHART TYPE	WHEN SHOULD I USE IT?	EXAMPLE
1	Pie Chart	When you want to quantify items and show them as percentages.
2	Bar Chart	When you want to compare values across a few categories. The values run horizontally
3	Column chart	When you want to compare values across a few categories. The values run vertically
4	Line chart	When you want to visualize trends over a period of time i.e. months, days, years, etc.
5	Combo Chart	When you want to highlight different types of information

The importance of charts

• Allows you to visualize data graphically
• It’s easier to analyse trends and patterns using charts in MS Excel
• Easy to interpret compared to data in cells

Step by step example of creating charts in Excel

In this tutorial, we are going to plot a simple column chart in Excel that will display the sold quantities against the sales year. Below are the steps to create chart in MS Excel:

• Open Excel
• Enter the data from the sample data table above
• Your workbook should now look as follows

To get the desired chart you have to follow the following steps

• Select the data you want to represent in graph
• Click on INSERT tab from the ribbon
• Click on the Column chart drop down button
• Select the chart type you want

You should be able to see the following chart

Tutorial Exercise

When you select the chart, the ribbon activates the following tab

Try to apply the different chart styles, and other options presented in your chart.

Summary

Charts are a powerful way of graphically visualizing your data. Excel has many types of charts that you can use depending on your needs.

Conditional formatting is also another power formatting feature of Excel that helps us easily see the data that meets a specified condition