How to Create Charts in Excel: Types & 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.

Types of charts

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 charts and when you should consider using them.

The importance of charts

• Allows you to visualize data graphically
• It's easier to analyse trends and patterns in the charts
• 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 that will display the sold quantities against the sales year.

• 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.

Download the above Excel Template

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