Many people don’t believe that one day they could reach this point! However, the reality is that most people are obsessed with Excel charts, given that they interact with them on most occasions. People fail to understand that they have only been playing around with the basics of Excel charts, and it’s now time to unleash the beast. The good news is that you stand a chance to elevate your simple charts to the next level when you read this article.
This article discusses everything revolving around advanced Excel charts and everything you need to learn in order to create one. Let’s get to business!
What is an Advanced Excel Chart?
When you look at Microsoft Excel closely, you will realize there is no room for storing different charts and graphs. The software offers the basics of everything you need to know, giving you a better foundation for creating more advanced chart types for your data visualization purposes. However, you may be less familiar with other charts, such as scatter charts, radar charts, and surface charts.
It’s evident that you can easily create multiple types of charts using Microsoft Excel. An advanced Excel chart is considered any type of chart that goes an extra mile to display more complex data than usual. It can be a combination of different charts that operate together to attain the same goal of data visualization.
Besides, a lot of emphases is on how you can create an advanced Excel graph and use it to present complex data sets to help you solve your data visualization needs. Below are some tricks and strategies you can use to create one.
Creating an Advanced Excel Chart
Microsoft Excel offers an expansive room to data professionals where they can create any type of chart depending on their data needs. There is no limitation on what you can do in Excel since the data you intend to present plays a significant role in helping you determine what suits you best. To help you roll up your sleeves, let’s pick on one of the advanced Excel charts and create it together. This will help you identify the major touch points about what needs to be done when creating advanced Excel charts.
In this scenario, let’s create an advanced Excel chart that depicts the relationship between the open rate and the number of subscriber counts of an email subscriber list. Building a combination chart can help uncover more information and relationships within these data sets.
Double-check and Highlight Your Data
When you want to create any type of chart or graph, always begin by double-checking your data to ensure that there are no blatant errors that are likely to affect your results in the end. Remember that the chart you create is specifically tied to the data you have collected. This means that any slight error you make on your data will also come out on the chart you create. The first step is to ensure that you do not have any spelling errors or digits looking off.
Once you have confirmed everything is alright, the next step is highlighting the data, including all the headers and columns. Highlighting the data is making you prepared to go ahead and insert the chart you prefer.
Insert a Chart
After highlighting the data, click on the insert button at the top of the page and choose the chart type you would like to use to represent the data you have outlined. Given that we need to create a combination chart, the first choice is the column chart to help represent the total number of email subscribers. Once you have clicked on the column chart, you will realize that the chart accommodates all the data you had outlined.
When you look at the column chart closely, you will realize that there is a short little column that depicts the open rate. The bars are very little and can be barely seen, although they are highlighted in orange. Remember that the open rate is outlined in percentage while numbers represent the subscribers. Displaying this kind of data in a single chart brings a lot of confusion. Let’s fix this in the next move!
Select the Second Chart Axis
Given that the blue columns on the chart represent the general number of email subscribers, you need to change the orange column into a line to represent the open rate. To make this happen, you need to click on the orange bars to select the whole data series. Remember that the yellow bars are extremely small, and you can experience challenges clicking them. To save time, click on the blue columns and select the “format” button.
Go ahead and click on “series” on the drop-down menu that appears in the left corner. And change the settings to “open rate.” This feature will automatically highlight all the arranged features. Right-click within the chart with the orange features highlighted and, select the “format data “series” within the bar that appears on the right side, select the secondary axis.
Change the Second Chart Type
When you reach this point, you may panic since. You will realize that the orange bars overtook the beauty of your chart. However, this is normal, and you don’t need to worry. Getting things back in order is also quick! Right-click the newly formed orange bars and navigate to the “chart design” tab within the ribbon. Click on the “change chart type” and then select the line chart.
You will realize that the number of email subscribers is outlined within the columns while the line chart displays the open rate. This makes it easier for your readers to digest your displayed content.
Fine Tune the Chart
Now that you have finished working on the complex part of the chart. It’s now time to make a few changes to your advanced Excel chart to make it appealing and clear. You can add the chart title, make color changes, and even the axis labels. In addition, this is the right time to ensure that everything remains clear. And nothing looks off within the entire chart.
Once you are done editing. You will have created an appealing advanced Excel chart outlining a series of different data elements. That you can use to discover trends and patterns in your data. Note that you can go ahead. And include a table in the chart to showcase more data depending on your needs. Remember that a table will help you show more detailed values within the chart you need your readers to note.
Bottom Line
Creating an advanced Excel chart using PPCexpo and it requires you to have a basic understanding of the other chart features that are used in our daily operations. Remember that nothing new comes with an advanced Excel chart. You only combine a few chart variables to come up with a complete chart that depicts different sets of data. You can make as many changes as possible to your chart to make it display more data values than usual. This is meant to save time and space when creating crucial reports for your business.