Special Edition Using® Microsoft® Office Word 2003

Creating a Chart from Scratch

You don't have to have an existing table in your document to build a chart. You don't even need a preexisting data source. You can open Graph by using a set of dummy (fake) data that Word generates and then replace that data with your real data.

To do so, place your insertion point where you want the chart to appear. Then choose Insert, Picture, Chart. Word's default chart uses dummy values to create a two-series 3D column chart.

Working in the Datasheet Window

Alongside the chart is a datasheet window containing the dummy data, as shown in Figure 15.19. The datasheet looks much like a basic spreadsheet, except that you can enter only numbers and letters in it—it cannot handle formulas. The only purpose of the datasheet ...