Excel 2013 For Dummies
Book image
Explore Book Buy On Amazon

When Excel 2013 first adds titles to a new chart, it gives them generic names, such as Chart Title and Axis Title. To edit or format these generic titles with the actual chart titles, click the title in the chart or click the name of the title on the Chart Elements drop-down list. Excel lets you know that a particular chart title is selected by placing selection handles around its perimeter.

After you select a title, you can click the insertion point in the text and then edit as you would any worksheet text or you can click to select the title, type the new title, and press Enter to completely replace it with the text you type.

To force part of the title onto a new line, click the insertion point at the place in the text where the line break is to occur. After the insertion point is positioned in the title, press Enter to start a new line.

After you finish editing the title, click somewhere else on the chart area to deselect it (or a worksheet cell if you’ve finished formatting and editing the chart).

When you add titles to your chart, Excel uses the Calibri (Body) font for the chart title (in 14-point size) and the x- and y-axis (in 10-point size). To change the font used in a title or any of its attributes, select the title and then use the appropriate command buttons in the mini-toolbar that appears next to the selected title or from the Font group on the Home tab.

Use Live Preview to see how a particular font or font size for the selected chart title looks in the chart before you select it. Simply click the Font or Font Size drop-down buttons and then highlight different font names or sizes to have the selected chart title appear in them.

If you need to change other formatting options for the titles in the chart, you can do so using the command buttons on the Format tab of the Chart Tools contextual tab. To format the entire text box that contains the title, click one of the following buttons in the Shape Styles group:

  • Shape Styles thumbnail in its drop-down gallery to format both the text and text box for the selected chart title

  • Shape Fill button to select a new color for the text box containing the selected chart title from its drop-down palette

  • Shape Outline button to select a new color for the outline of the text box for the selected chart text from its drop-down palette

  • Shape Effects button to apply a new effect (Shadow, Reflection, Glow, Soft Edges, and so on) to the text box containing the selected chart title from its drop-down list

To format just the text in chart titles, click one of the buttons in the WordArt Styles group:

  • WordArt Styles thumbnail in its drop-down gallery to apply a new WordArt style to the text of the selected chart title

  • Text Fill button to select a new fill color for the text in the selected chart title from its gallery

  • Text Outline button (immediately below the Text Fill button) to select a new outline color for the text in the selected chart title from its drop-down palette

  • Text Effects button (immediately below the Text Outline button) to apply a text effect (Shadow, Reflection, Glow, Bevel, and so on) to the text of the selected chart title from its drop-down list

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Greg Harvey, PhD, is President of Mind Over Media, an online media company. He has written all editions of Excel For Dummies, Excel All-in-One For Dummies, and Excel Workbook For Dummies. Greg is an experienced educator with a wide variety of interests.

This article can be found in the category: