Then, you want to create a bar chart that shows the average score for each student. This will give you a good idea of how well each student did on the exams.
In the Charts section, you’ll see a list of all your selected data. To insert a chart, click on the Chart button and then select the type of chart you want to create.
The data visualization tool, Google Sheets, offers a variety of charts to help you understand your data. By default, it tries to list out the most common types of charts such as Column, Line, Pie, Bar, Area, and Scatter. If you want a different type of chart, just click on Other Charts. For our example we will try use a column chart to visualize the data. Click on Column and then select the type of chart you would like. There are many options! Also don’t worry because if you pick a chart you don’t like you can easily change to another chart type with just a click of your mouse. ..
Excel now creates the chart based on the data and dumps it somewhere on your sheet. That’s it! You have created your first graph/chart in Excel and it literally takes just a few minutes. Creating a chart is easy, but what you can do with your chart after making it is what makes Excel such a powerful tool. ..
The Chart Tools tab in the ribbon allows you to change the chart’s design, layout and format.
One neat thing you can do is click on Switch Row/Column under Data and the chart will instantly change with the data switched. Now here’s what the chart looks like with the same data, but with X and Y switched.
This chart is useful because now I can see the scores for all the students per exam. It’s very easy to pick out who did the best and who did the worst on each test when the data is displayed like this. Now let’s make our chart a little nicer by adding some titles, etc. An easy way to do this is to click on the little down arrow with a line on top of it under Chart Layouts. Here you’ll see a bunch of different ways we can change the layout.
The chart on the left is the default layout. The chart on the right has been customized to show how it would look if you added additional axis titles. ..
On the Layout tab, under Charts Tools, you can adjust the title and axis labels, as well as the font and color of your chart.
The drop down box lets you pick any specific part of the chart and then you can click Format Selection to change the settings for just that one part. Here you can see all the different sections you can select:
Suppose I click on Horizontal (Category) Axis and then click on Format Selection. I’ll get a dialog window that will let me adjust any and all properties for that object. In this case, I can add shadows, rotate the text, add a background color, etc.
In the Labels, Axes, and Background sections of the Layout, you can customize your chart using options in these sections. Most of the options here let you move things to different locations on the chart.
The Format tab under Chart Tools lets you adjust the formatting on every part of the chart. You can use the Current Selection tool on the left and then change the border styles, font styles, arrangement of objects, etc.
I added a reflection effect to all the text on the chart and gave the whole chart a 3D effect of coming from the back to the front instead of just flat.
In Excel, you can create charts that are more complex than the one I have shown here. This tutorial was just to get your feet wet and understand the basics of creating a chart. If you have any questions about the tutorial or you own chart, please leave a comment. Enjoy! ..
