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How to Add a Slicer to a Chart in Excel

Cody Schneider•

Tired of endlessly adjusting filters every time you want to explore your Excel chart from a different angle? There's a much cleaner, faster, and more professional way to make your charts interactive. This guide will walk you through exactly how to add slicers to your charts, transforming them from static images into dynamic dashboards.

What is a Slicer in Excel?

Think of slicers as a set of user-friendly buttons for filtering your data. Instead of digging into clumsy drop-down menus, you can just click on a button - like "North America" or "Q2" - and your chart will instantly update. They are visually appealing, easy to use, and make it simple for anyone (including colleagues who aren't Excel experts) to interact with and understand your data.While originally designed for PivotTables, you can now use them to filter standard Excel Tables, which in turn filters any chart connected to that table. This simple tool immediately makes your reports feel more like a polished, interactive dashboard and less like a static spreadsheet.

Step 1: Get Your Data Ready by Creating an Excel Table

Before you can add a slicer, Excel needs to understand your data as a single, coherent block. The best way to do this is by formatting your data source as an official Excel Table. This not only enables slicers but also offers other benefits like dynamic range updating and easier formatting.If your data is just a regular range of cells, here’s how to convert it:

  1. Click anywhere inside your dataset.

  2. Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon.

  3. Click the Table button.

  4. A small dialog box will appear, confirming the range of your data. If your data has headers (like "Region," "Product," "Sales"), make sure the checkbox for "My table has headers" is ticked.

  5. Click OK.

Your data range will now be formatted with alternating colored rows, and you'll see a new "Table Design" tab appear on the ribbon whenever you click inside it. This is the foundation for creating your slicer-powered chart.For this tutorial, let's assume we're working with a simple sales dataset that looks like this in an Excel Table format:

Step 2: Create a Chart from your Excel Table

Now that you have a properly formatted Table, creating a chart is straightforward. Since a slicer works by filtering the table - and the chart is built from that table - any filter you apply will automatically update the chart.However, for the most robust and flexible experience, we'll create a PivotChart. This type of chart is directly connected to a PivotTable, which is the native environment for slicers and makes managing complex reports much easier.

How to Create a PivotChart:

  1. Click anywhere inside your Excel Table that you created in the previous step.

  2. Go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon.

  3. In the 'Charts' group, click on PivotChart.

  4. The "Create PivotChart" dialog will pop up. Since you're already in your table, the correct Table/Range should be automatically selected. Choose whether to place it in a new worksheet or an existing one, then click OK.

You'll now see a blank PivotChart and a "PivotChart Fields" pane on the right. This is where you build your chart. Drag and drop fields into the boxes:

  • Drag "Product Category" into the Axis (Categories) box.

  • Drag "Sales Amount" into the Values box. It should default to "Sum of Sales Amount."

  • Drag "Region" into the Legend (Series) box.

You now have a clustered column chart showing sales for each product category, broken down by region. It’s a good starting point, but now let's make it interactive.

Step 3: Add Slicers to Your PivotChart

With the PivotChart in place, adding slicers is incredibly simple. This is where the magic happens.

  1. Click on your newly created PivotChart to select it.

  2. On the Ribbon, the PivotChart Analyze contextual tab will appear. Click on it.

  3. Look for the "Filter" group and click the Insert Slicer button.

  4. A dialog box will appear, listing all the headers from your source table (Date, Region, Sales Rep, Product Category, etc.).

  5. Check the boxes for the fields you want to create filter buttons for. For our example, let's choose Region and Sales Rep.

  6. Click OK.

You'll now see two slicer boxes appear on your spreadsheet. One for "Region" and one for "Sales Rep." Click a button in either slicer - for instance, click on "Jessica" in the Sales Rep slicer - and watch your chart instantly filter to show only her sales data. Click on "North" in the Region slicer, and it filters even further. To select multiple items, hold down Ctrl while clicking. To clear a filter, click the small "Clear Filter" icon at the top right of the slicer box.

Step 4: Customize and Format Your Slicers

Default slicers are functional, but you can customize their appearance to match your dashboard's design and make them easier to use.Click on one of your slicers, and a new Slicer contextual tab will appear on the ribbon. Here are a few key adjustments you can make:

  • Slicer Styles: Choose from a gallery of colors and styles to match your chart's theme. You can find pre-set colors for light and dark themes.

  • Columns: By default, slicers are a single vertical list. You can change this by adjusting the number in the "Columns" box. For example, changing the "Region" slicer to have 4 columns will turn it into a short, horizontal button bar, which can save a lot of space.

  • Size and Position: You can click and drag the corners to resize slicers and move them around on your worksheet, just like any other object. Align them next to your chart for a clean, dashboard-like feel.

  • Slicer Settings: Click the "Slicer Settings" button on the ribbon. A useful option here is "Hide items with no data." This keeps your slicers clean by removing any buttons that wouldn't return any results if clicked based on other active filters.

Bonus Tip: Connect One Slicer to Multiple Charts

What if you have more than one PivotChart? For example, one chart showing sales by category and another showing sales over time. You don't need a separate slicer for each one. You can connect a single slicer to control multiple charts, creating a truly unified dashboard experience.Here’s how to do it:

  1. Create two or more PivotCharts from the same underlying Excel Table.

  2. Insert a slicer for one of the charts using the method described above (e.g., a "Region" slicer).

  3. Right-click on the slicer you want to connect.

  4. From the context menu, select Report Connections...

  5. A dialog box will appear listing all the PivotTables/PivotCharts in your workbook that can be connected. Simply check the boxes next to each PivotChart you want this single slicer to control.

  6. Click OK.

That's it! Now when you click a button on that one slicer, all of the connected charts will filter simultaneously. This is the secret to building efficient and professional-grade interactive reports in Excel.

Final Thoughts

Adding slicers elevates your Excel reports from static documents to dynamic, easy-to-use tools. By pairing them with PivotCharts, you can create powerful dashboards that allow anyone to effortlessly explore data, uncover insights, and get answers to their questions without having to navigate confusing filter menus.Manually building this type of interactive report is a powerful skill, but it still requires setup and making sure everything is connected correctly. At Graphed, we created a way to get interactive, real-time dashboards without any of the manual work. We let you connect your data sources (like Google Analytics, Shopify, or even a Google Sheet) and use simple, natural language to ask for the dashboard you need. Your charts update automatically, so your key metrics are always live, giving you and your team back the time you used to spend building reports.