Data selected for charting
CHAPTER 5 n CHARTING IN EXCEL 2007 194
nNote You??™ll notice that we did not select the row or column containing the total sales amounts. Excel will
include them in the chart, which will throw our vertical (value) axis amounts off.
8. On the Insert Ribbon, go to the Charts section, and click the Column chart type dropdown
list to display the many column chart types available to you.
9. In the 3-D Column section, choose the first (leftmost) item, the 3-D Clustered Column
chart type, as shown in Figure 5-4.
Figure 5-4. Column chart type selection menu
10. Stop the Macro Recorder.
The new chart is inserted in the worksheet. Notice in Figure 5-5 that Excel has highlighted
the data ranges associated with each chart element (legend, values, and horizontal axis label
ranges).
CHAPTER 5 n CHARTING IN EXCEL 2007 195
Figure 5-5. The Beverage sales chart
In addition to inserting the chart, Excel also added a context ribbon. Context ribbons provide
commands relative to the currently selected object. In this case it??™s a chart, but it could be
an inserted image or any other object that can be acted upon. Context ribbons are noted by a
title bar above the ribbon area. Figure 5-6 shows the Chart Tools context ribbon. It contains
three of its own ribbons: Design, Layout, and Format.
Figure 5-6. The Chart Tools context ribbon
Excel??™s default charting behavior is to display the data values by column (by product in
this example). The vertical and horizontal axes may not show the data with the orientation
you expected.
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