Excel 2019 Bible

Part III: Creating Charts and Other Visualizations

Using a data table is probably best suited for charts on chart sheets. If you need to show the data used in an embed-

ded chart, you can do so using data in cells, which gives you more formatting flexibility.

Creating Chart Templates

This section describes how to create custom chart templates. A template includes custom-

ized chart formatting and settings. When you create a new chart, you can choose to use

your template rather than a built-in chart type.

If you find that you’re continually customizing your charts in the same way, you can prob-

ably save some time by creating a template. Or, if you create lots of combination charts,

you can create a combination chart template and avoid making the manual adjustments

required for a combination chart.

To create a chart template, follow these steps:

1. 
   

   Create a chart to serve as the basis for your template. The data you use for this
   chart isn’t critical, but for best results it should be typical of the data that you’ll
   eventually be plotting with your custom chart type.

   
   


2. 
   

   Apply any formatting and customizations that you like. This step determines
   the appearance of the charts created from the template.

   
   


3. 
   

   Activate the chart, right-click the Chart Area or the Plot Area, and choose Save
   as Template from the shortcut menu. The Save Chart Template dialog box appears.

   
   


4. 
   

   Provide a name for the template and click Save. Make sure you don’t change the
   proposed directory for the file.

   
   

To create a chart based on a template, follow these steps:

1. Select the data to be used in the chart.


2. Choose Insert ➪ Charts ➪ Recommended Charts. The Insert Chart dialog box
   appears.


3. Select the All Charts tab.


4. From the left side of the Insert Chart dialog box, select Templates. Excel dis-
   plays a thumbnail for each custom template that has been created.


5. Click the thumbnail that represents the template you want to use and then
   click OK. Excel creates the chart based on the template you selected.

You can also apply a template to an existing chart. Select the chart and choose Chart Tools ➪ Design ➪ Type ➪

Change Chart Type to display the Change Chart Type dialog box, which is identical to the Insert Chart dialog box.