Combining Chart Types

Combining chart types to be handle to get the message across of what your data is saying

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Combining Chart Types

You will be aware of how to create a chart using the same Chart Type. So, for example, here we have a chart, it’s got the days of the month, the amount spent per day and the number of calls made per day – we have charted it using Column charts. What we can do, is we can combine chart types to appear on the same chart.

So, for example, the process is simple enough, I choose the series I want to change, so in this case, I am going to change the number of calls or red series so I click on it and you’ll see that series is activated. When I right click on it, one of the options says “Change Series Chart Type”- so it is only the series and not the whole chart. If I click Change Series Chart Type, I have now accessed all these charts again. So let’s try with a line chart, for example. When I click OK, notice that we have now got two different chart types on the same chart. The Column Charts for the Bill and a line for the number of calls, which is quite nice.

If perhaps that doesn’t look right to you, we can go change it again and maybe another option is an Area chart. Click OK. And you’ll see you can have this type of effect.

You can add as many chart types as looks reasonable and you can use some of the other features. So for example, with this area chart here, we think is a little bit small and we want to show it on a secondary axis, you can right click on the Series, you can say Format Data Series, you can put it onto a secondary axis, when I say close, we can now perhaps compare the shape of the two graphs a little more easily.