Office 2013 In Depth

Creating Charts

Charts reflect the data in a worksheet and so you need to make sure that the values and labels in the worksheet provide the information in a way that allows for charting. You should arrange the worksheet data in a consistent manner, either horizontally in rows or vertically in columns. Also avoid empty cells, rows, or columns within the areas of the worksheet that serve as the data series for your chart or charts.

Although a chart is based on the values in your worksheet, your sheet labels provide the categories and information used as axes titles and legend information. It makes sense to make row and column headings (your labels) very descriptive yet short enough to fit well on the chart as a chart element.

When building a worksheet ...