Chart Format Ribbon

How to use the chart format ribbon to change a charts format

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Chart Format Ribbon

The last ribbon that exists under the specialized area is the Format Ribbon – so when I click on it, you’ll see what this pretty much covers is the formatting area. The far left is our Current Selection which is the same as we had in the Layout where you can choose the components of the graph and do something with them. You can play with the Shape Styles – so you’ll see as I hover over them they change – there is a whole selection of them. So you’ll see you can make your graph really look nice. There is a Shape Fill and these are pretty generic, Outline and the effects, Word Art Styles, etc.

What I’d like to show you is, if you look here – there is the Size – so you can play with your chart to get exactly the size you want. But quite important, here at the side, you’ll see there is a little arrow here – what that tells you is there is something else behind it. When I click on it, you’ll see we get a couple of options- there are Size options – you can choose that and how it is going to work. There are Properties – now this is quite important. Let’s just look at this carefully. What you’ll see at the moment it is set to Move and Size with cells. What does that mean? I will come here and close this. Let me take this column and increase it, like that. Notice that your graph has been affected – it has been stretched. Let’s just undo. What we can do if we click on Size, then we go to Properties. One of the options says Move but don’t Size with cells and Don’t Move but Size with cells – so I am going to use that one. Say Close. Let’s do the same thing, come here, increase the size. Notice that although the column has changed, the graph has stayed the same. Very useful to make sure that the formatting at the end of a project doesn’t make your perfect graph not so perfect any more. Just looking at the Size again. You can see whether you are allowed to print the object or if it is locked and Alt Text just gives you the ability to type in some wording here which helps with the Web Browsers.