Chart Element in MS Excel

The excel charts can have more descriptions with the use of the chart elements, which will also make data more interesting to look at. You will discover more about the chart components in this article.

Consider the following data, which represents the sales of the listed item year-wise:

You can copy this data into your excel sheet to practice.

The steps to adding chart elements to your graph are as follows:

• First Step - Select data columns and then click on the chart button in insert: You will see three options at the right-up corner of the charts, which are:

• Second step - Click on the chart element icon to get the chart elements. You will see a number of options which are listed below:

Chart Elements

• Axes
• Axis Title
• Chart Title
• Data Labels
• Data Table
• Error Bars
• Grid Lines
• Legend
• Trendline

You can use any of these chart items as per your requirements.

• Third Step - You can obtain a preview of how each of these chart components will be shown by pointing at it. For example, click on the Data table, and the whole data table will appear in the chart as shown below:

• Fourth Step - When you hover on the chart element, you will find some more options by clicking the pointer appearing on the right side of each chart element. For example, when you click the pointer of Axes, you will see the following options as shown in the figure below:

• Fifth Step - To add these chart elements, select the desired options and to remove any of them, deselect them.

In the given figure, we have selected the Axes, Chart Title, Error Bars, Gridlines, and Legend elements. Whereas, Axis Titles, Data Labels, Data table, and Trendline are not selected.

How to Use Chart Elements?

Now let's understand how to use all chart elements.

1. Axes

The given chart is a 2d-chart, which is represented by two axes, horizontal and vertical. The horizontal axis is referred to as the x-axis or category axis. The vertical axis is referred to as the y-axis, the value axis, the data axis, or the range axis.

The Axis is checked by default. You can click to select or deselect the axis:

• Without Axes
  
• With Axes
  
  In vertical Axes, it is representing the amount, and in horizontal axes, 1 to 7 corresponds to year 2016 to 2022.
  In a 3d-chart, we get one more axis referred to as the z-axis, depth axis or the series axis. The 3d-charts are used for better data visualization.
  
• Pie Charts and Sunburst charts do not have an axis. The data is plotted in the chart area-wise.
• Other charts like Bar, Histogram, Line charts, etc., have different styles of plotting data on the axis.
• In each type of chart, the chart elements are different. Some have a few chart elements some have more.

2. Axis Title -

Axis titles are used to name the axis. It gives a better understanding of which data is kept on which axes.

• You can give titles to the horizontal, vertical, and depth axis accordingly.
• But you cannot add an axis title to those charts which do not have an axis. For example, Pie and Sunburst charts.

Steps to Add Axis Title:

1. Select the axis title -You will get multiple options shown in the figure:
   
2. Click on each axis title to edit them- You can type manually, or you can link the axis title to the cell containing text
   To link the axis title - select the axis title, and in the formula bar type equal to (=) and select any cell for the name. In our chart, we have typed = and selected A2 cell (=Sheet1!$A$2) in the formula bar for the depth axis title. The above formula has changed the name of the depth axis to the text in the A2 cell.
   

3. Chart Title -

In the chart elements list, you get an option to add the chart title. The chart title appears at the top of the chart.

Following are the steps to add a chart title to your chart:

1. Select / Click on the chart title.
2. Click the Chart Elements icon.
3. Select the chart title form the chart element list. You will see the "Chart Title" at the top of the chart.

1. Click on the Char Title and type the name manually.

If you want to make chart title same as the heading of the data. You can link it to the cell containing the heading and whenever the worksheet is updated the chart title will get automatically updated.

Following are the steps to link the axis title to a cell containing that text:

Step 1 - Click on the chart title on the chart.

Step 2 - In the formula bar, type = and select the cell containing the text/heading. Then press enter. The chart title will be updated.

As mentioned, when the text in the link cell changes the chart title also gets changed.

4. Data Labels -

Data table gives more clarity about the information plotted on the chart. It plots the data label for each individual series.

The given pie chart is representing the sale of each item in the year 2016 but it is plotted without the data labels.

In the above chart, we have selected A4 to A8 and B4 to B8 cells.

We can clearly observe from the above chart that the home appliances were sold more than the other items. But we cannot conclude how much it is greater than the other and what is the percentage share.

Now, let us observe the chart after adding the data labels.

Step 1 ? Click on the Chart.

Step 2 ? Click the Chart Elements icon.

Step 3 - Click on the Data Label. The value of each item now appears on each pie slice.

If we want to show the data labels in percentage, we can change it whenever we want.

To show the data labels in percentage follow the following options.

1. When you hover over the data labels you get icon. Click on this icon.
2. Click on more options.
3. In the label options unclick the value and click on the percentage or you can click both.

Now, we have more clarity on the sales of each item in 2016. And we can easily conclude how much each item was sold more or less from one another.

Also, you place these data labels wherever you want.

Select any of these options to place the data label or move it manually.

5. Data Table -

We can place the data table in the Bar, Column, Line, and Area chart. The Data Table feature is used to display the data in the chart in the form of a table.

Following are the steps to insert the data table in the chart.

First Two steps are same:

1. Click on the Chart
2. Click on the icon
3. Select the Data Table.

The default view of data table is now displayed in the chart. In the default view, the data table appears at the bottom of the chart and the table heading is the horizontal axis.

And in the case of bar charts, the header row of the data tables does not replace the horizontal axis.

For more editing in the data table, follow these steps:

1. Click on the icon.
   
2. Click on more options:
   
   
   
3. You will get these many options to format your data table. Please explore all the options to get more clarity on them.

6. Error Bars -

The potential error amounts in relation to each data point in a data series are represented graphically by error bars. As an illustration, the outcomes of a scientific investigation can be shown to contain 5% positive and negative possible error percentages.

Two-dimensional area, bar, column, line, x-y (scatter), and bubble charts all support the addition of error bars to a data series.

Following are the steps to add error bars in your chart:

1. Here also, click on the chart.
2. Click on the icon.
3. Select error bars from the chart element list.
   
4. When you hover over the error bars you will get icon. Click on this to get more options related to error bars.
   
   You get these many options. Explore each of them one by one to get more clarity on them.
5. Click on More Options. A small window will open with the options of each series selected.
   
6. Select any of the options. We have selected Vehicle here. The error bars appear for the vehicle series.
   

The error bars are modified to reflect your changes if you alter the values on the worksheet corresponding to the series data points.

You can show the error bars for the X values, the Y values, or both in X-Y Scatter and Bubble charts.

The error bars are represented for the selected series.

7. Gridlines -

You can show the horizontal and vertical chart gridlines in a chart that shows the axes to make the data simpler to read.

1. Gridlines go along the plot area of the chart from any horizontal and vertical axes.
2. The depth gridlines can also be seen in 3-D charts.

Without Gridlines:

Following are the steps to add Gridlines in the chart:

From the chart element list, select the Gridlines. The given chart is displayed with the gridlines.

More On Gridlines

1. When you hover over the Gridlines option, you get icon. Click on this. You will get the following options.
   
2. Select the first two options. The new chart will be like as shown in the figure below:
   
3. For 3-d Charts you also get an option to add Depth Major and Minor gridlines.
4. You can explore other options for better clarity.

Pie charts and doughnut charts, which do not display axes, are examples of chart formats for which gridlines cannot be displayed.

8. Legend -

The legend appears by default when you create chart.

With Legend

You can deselect the legend option if you want.

Without Legend

9. Trendline -

Trendlines are used to examine prediction issues and graphically illustrate data trends. Regression analysis is another name for this type of study.

You can use regression analysis to forecast future values by extending a trendline in a chart beyond the existing data.

In the case of multi, line chart when you click on the Trendline you get the options to add trendline for any series plotted on the chart.

In the given chart, we have potted only two series and we get following options. We have selected Electronic Gadgets option.

The Trendline for the Selected series (Electronic gadget) appears on the chart.

We hope you have found these very helpful. We suggest you to explore all these options at least one time to get better understanding on them and when you get a chance to work on it, you can easily do that work.