Office 2008 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter III.5. Heavenly Charting

In This Chapter

• Making different kinds of charts

• Deciding where the chart should live

• Using error bars

• Getting a Gantt chart

• Creating histograms

Charts are an Excel strongpoint. Students, businesses, scientists, news organizations, economists, and many other groups use charts. When you make charts in Office 2008, you find a brand-new charting engine that gleams with the latest Microsoft charting technology.

Note

The terms chart and graph are interchangeable. We stick with chart, while acknowledging when graph is the preferred term.

Because the chart feature of Excel is now common to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, we cover most aspects of charts in Book I, Chapter 5. If certain terms here seem foreign to you, we recommend that you flip to that chapter before you dive into this one. However, if you've worked with charts before, you might be familiar with chart basics. This chapter focuses primarily on aspects of charts that are unique to working with them in Microsoft Excel.

Making a Chart

In Excel, making a chart is a one-click operation after you perform a minimal amount of setup. It's hard to imagine an easier way to create charts, as shown in Figure 5-1. Follow these steps:

1. Select a data range.

2. Click the Charts tab of Elements Gallery.

   
   

   Figure III.5.1. Making a chart ...