Creating a New Chart with the Excel Chart Wizard

To create a new chart in Excel, you use the Chart Wizard. After you've created the chart, you can decide whether to embed it or put it on a separate chart sheet. To create a new chart with the Chart Wizard, follow these steps:

1. Select the range of cells containing the data that you want to plot, including the column and row headings.

The labels in the top row of selected data become category labels in the chart. In other words, in most charts, they appear along the x-axis to describe the data being charted.

The labels in the first selected column on the left are used to name the data series in the chart. Excel assigns values to appear along the y-axis based on the data in those data series.

2. Click the Chart Wizard button on the Standard toolbar (the button with the colorful column chart icon).

Excel then opens the Chart Wizard — Step 1 of 4 — Chart Type dialog box, shown in Figure 1, where you select the type of chart to create. This dialog box contains a wide variety of different types of charts and graphs on two tabs: Standard Types and Custom Types. Each of the types on the Standard Types tab offers two or more subtypes to choose from.

To preview how the data that you've selected appears as the type of chart that you select, click and hold down the Press and Hold to View Sample button.

3. Click the type of chart to create in Chart Type list box and then, if necessary, select its subtype in the Chart Sub-Type list box before you click the Next button.

Excel then opens the Chart Wizard — Step 2 of 4 — Chart Source Data dialog box, where you verify the data to be plotted and whether the data series occur in the rows or columns of the selected worksheet on the Data Range tab.

You can also use the options on the Series tab in this dialog box to make changes to the address of the range used as the category labels or the ranges that designate individual value ranges.

4. Check the sample chart that appears at the top of the Data Range tab, and then make any modifications necessary to the source data used in the chart on both the Data Range and Series tabs before you click the Next button.

Excel then opens the Chart Wizard — Step 3 of 4 — Chart Options dialog box, where you can specify titles for the chart and category and value axes. You can also change a wide variety of chart options.

To enter titles for the chart, click the appropriate text box (Chart Title, Category (X) Axis, or Value (Y) Axis) and then enter the title that you want to appear. (After a brief pause, the title you enter in the text box appears in the same chart shown in the preview area on the Titles tab.)

5. Enter the titles that you want to appear in the chart on the Titles tab and then click any of the other tabs and change their options as required before you click the Next button.

Excel then opens the Chart Wizard — Step 4 of 4 — Chart Location dialog box, where you indicate whether you want the chart to be embedded (the default selection) or to appear on a new sheet (by selecting the As New Sheet radio button).

6. (Optional) If you want the new chart to appear on its own chart sheet, click the As New Sheet radio button and then enter a descriptive name for the sheet in the associated text.

If you do select the As New Sheet radio button but don't name the new chart sheet, Excel gives the sheet the default name Chart1 (assuming that it's the first chart sheet that you've added to the workbook).

7. Click the Finish button to have Excel draw your new chart.

If you selected the As New Sheet in the Step 4 of 4 — Chart Location dialog box, Excel draws the chart on a new chart sheet, which is inserted in front of the current worksheet.

If you left the default As Object In radio button selected, Excel draws the chart in the current worksheet and displays the Chart toolbar. The new embedded chart remains selected (indicated by the appearance of the black square sizing handles around the perimeter) so that you can move and/or resize the chart.

8. Reposition the chart in the worksheet or the chart sheet in the workbook as desired and then save the workbook by choosing File --> Save.