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Excel 2013: 3 New Ways To Customise Your Charts

new feature for microsoft office 2013Whether you’ve decided to use a suggested chart to represent your data or already knew which one works best from the outset, a new toolbar in Excel 2013 allow you to customise your visualisation quicker.

Selecting the chart will automatically reveal two tool ribbons: Design & Format, both specifically designed to help you manipulate your Excel 2013 charts. Although the Chart Tools Layout tab no longer exists in 2013, the buttons it contained are still available, just in different places.

Excel 2013 charts

Three (new) buttons for chart formatting now appear at the top right corner of your chart; Chart Elements, Chart Styles and Chart Filters. Instead of digging through menus you can access these buttons overlaid on the chart.

Excel 2013 charts

 

Chart Elements

Add or Remove specific elements of your chart such as Data Labels and Gridlines. This way you can have as much or as little labelling and layout features as you desire.

Excel Charts 2013

 

Chart Styles

Change the colour and style of your chart with this simple formatting option. Scroll over each option to get a preview of how your new chart will look.

Excel Charts 2013

 

Chart Filters

Want to modify what data the chart includes? Previously you had to modify the data range in a fiddly way. Now you can hide and show data with the chart filters selecting them from the tick box menu, very similar to filtering data in a table. Customising your charts has never been so easy.

Excel Charts 2013

 

For more tips and features on Excel 2013 and other versions, browse London Excel courses from STL, available London and UK wide. With training levels ranging from beginner up to advanced and Excel VBA, there’s sure to be a course to suit your needs.

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Excel Training

Excel Training 2013: Sparklines through Quick Analysis

new feature for microsoft office 2013Introduced in Excel 2010, Sparklines create charts within a cell. It can help to show one figure in context with others and illustrate trends. In this example a blank column is created for the sparklines before selecting the adjacent data.

In Excel 2013 the Quick Analysis feature has now brought Sparklines to the fore. Perfect for tracking performance over time, this new way of accessing them will give a quick insight into your data.

Sparklines in Excel 2013

How to: Highlight some Excel data in a table and look for the Quick Analysis tag to float over the bottom-right corner of your selection. Put your mouse over this icon to explore the options.

For more tips and features on Excel 2013 and other versions, browse Microsoft Excel training courses from STL, available London and UK wide. With our instructor-led training, you’ll be able to manipulate your data in ways you never thought possible, helping you save time and money. Choose your preferred course ranging from beginner to advanced level.