Part III: Creating Charts and Other Visualizations
Accessibility Provide alternate text for the seeing impaired.
Arrange Adjust the “stack order” of shapes, align shapes, group multiple shapes, and
rotate shapes.
Size Change the size of a shape by typing dimensions.
As an alternative to the Ribbon, you can use the Format Shape and Format Graphic task
panes, respectively. Right-click the shape or icon and choose the Format option. The task
pane contains some additional formatting options that aren’t on the Ribbon. Changes
appear immediately, and you can keep the Format Shape task pane open while you work.
You could read 20 pages about formatting shapes and icons, but it wouldn’t be a very effi-
cient way of learning. The best way, by far, to learn about formatting shapes and icons is to
experiment. The formatting commands are intuitive, and you can always use Undo if a com-
mand doesn’t do what you expected it to do.
Enhancing Excel reports with shapes
Most of us think of Excel shapes as mildly useful objects that can be added to a worksheet if
we need to show a square, some arrows, a circle, and so forth. But if you use your imagination,
you can leverage Excel shapes to create stylized interfaces that can really enhance your dash-
boards. Here are a few examples how Excel shapes can spice up your dashboards and reports.
Creating visually appealing containers with shapes
A peekaboo tab lets you tag a section of your dashboard with a label that looks like it’s
wrapping around your dashboard components. In the example illustrated in Figure 23.14, a
peekaboo tab is used to label this group of components as belonging to the North region.
FIGURE 23.14
Peekaboo tab
As you can see in Figure 23.15, there is no real magic here. It’s just a set of shapes and text
boxes that are cleverly arranged to give the impression that a label is wrapping around to
show the region name.
