Transcripts for the above video clip:

Excel 2007 Graph Tips

When using graphs in Excel it is useful to set up your data in a certain way just to make it easier to create the graph.  So what you’ll see here, we have pulled the data that relates to the graph into a nice pre defined area – you’ll see there are no gaps between rows and columns – it is all nice tightly packed. And we  have got labels for the rows and the columns.

Another interesting thing is, depending on what you have  in the top left corner here, Excel’s default graph may be different.  So if, for example, you have column labels here that represent a number – so in this case, dates, which are numbers, and you put a label in the top left corner – if I create a default graph, this is the graph I’ll get and you’ll notice that the dates are along this axis.  If, however, I don’t have anything in the top left corner, the default will take the destination networks  as the X axis.  So depending on what you want, you may want to think about that – in any case you can change these around – so it’s not a major problem.

Some  more useful shortcuts and tips.  If you want to create a graph quickly, what you can do  - you highlight the data  and if you push your F11 key – notice what it’s done is it has gone and created a graph instantly. It uses the default graph and turns it to create a chart sheet.  This is   opposed to going the normal way of being asked what graph you want.  So that is just a nice quick way of setting up a graph.

Another useful tip when moving graphs around, you can see you can move them manually, if you hold the Alt key and then move around, what you’ll notice is that it jumps between the areas, so that it lines up with the columns and rows. So, for example, if you look here, this is lining up here and here’s a grid line. When I click, hold Alt down and pull one to the right, you’ll see it is lined up exactly. So the movements are in line with the grid lines and it just makes it easier to move around.  The same thing happens if you are re- sizing a graph. So I am going to re- size it – if I hold Alt down, you’ll see it re- sizes in increments of the next grid line.  So it just makes it easier to set your graphs up to be exactly the same or exactly in line