How to Create a Chart in Excel

Turning a spreadsheet full of numbers into a clear, compelling visual story is one of the most powerful skills you can learn in Excel. A well-made chart can reveal trends, highlight comparisons, and communicate insights far more effectively than rows of raw data. This guide will walk you through the entire process, showing you exactly how to create and customize great-looking charts in Excel, step by step.

First, Prepare Your Data for Charting

Before you even think about clicking the "Insert" tab, a little data preparation will save you a lot of headaches. Great charts start with well-organized data. If your data isn't structured properly, Excel will get confused and produce a chart that’s either incorrect or unreadable.

Follow these simple rules for a smooth experience:

• Organize in Columns and Rows: Your data should be in a simple tabular format. Typically, the first column contains your labels or categories (like "January," "February," "March"), and the subsequent columns contain the numerical data you want to plot (like "Sales," "Website Visitors," or "Units Sold").
• Use Clear Headers: Every column should have a unique and descriptive header in the very first row. This isn't just for your benefit, Excel uses these headers to automatically create axis titles and legend entries.
• No Empty Rows or Columns: Ensure there are no completely blank rows or columns within your data set. When you select your data, Excel looks for a contiguous block of cells. A blank row can cause Excel to think your data set has ended, leading it to ignore anything after the gap.

Here’s an example of a perfectly structured data set, ready to be turned into a chart:

With your data cleaned up and structured like this, you're ready to create your chart.

How to Create a Chart in Excel: The Core Steps

Once your data is ready, creating a basic chart takes less than a minute. Let’s use the sales data from above as our example.

Step 1: Select Your Data

Click on the top-left cell of your data (in our example, the cell with "Product Category") and drag your mouse down to the bottom-right cell (the cell with Q2's "Software" sales figure). This will highlight your entire data range, including the headers.

Pro Tip: To select non-adjacent columns (e.g., only Product Category and Q2 Sales), hold down the Ctrl (on Windows) or Cmd (on Mac) key while you click and drag to select each range.

Step 2: Go to the "Insert" Tab

With your data selected, click on the Insert tab in the main Excel ribbon at the top of the screen. You'll see a section of the ribbon dedicated to "Charts."

Step 3: Choose Your Chart Type

Here, you have two main options:

• Recommended Charts: This is the best place to start if you're unsure which chart type to use. Excel will analyze your selected data and suggest a few options that are a good fit. It often gets it right, and it's a great way to learn which charts work for which data types.
• Specific Chart Icons: If you know exactly what you want, you can click on the icons for column, line, pie, bar, and other chart types. Hovering over an icon will show you a preview of how your data will look in that format.

For our example, a Column Chart is an excellent choice for comparing sales figures across different categories. We'll click the icon for a column chart and select the first option, a "2-D Clustered Column."

Step 4: Your Chart Appears!

That's it! Excel will instantly place a new chart directly onto your worksheet. It will have used your column headers for the legend ("Q1 Sales" and "Q2 Sales") and your row labels for the horizontal axis ("Laptops," "Smartphones," etc.).

Choosing the Right Chart for Your Data

Creating a chart is easy, but creating the right chart takes a bit more thought. Using the wrong visual can confuse your audience or even misrepresent your data. Here’s a quick guide to some of the most common chart types and when to use them.

Column Charts

Use for: Comparing distinct values across different categories.

Example: Comparing the number of units sold for different products side-by-side. It’s one of the most common and easily understood chart types for ranking or comparison.

Bar Charts

Use for: Same as a column chart, but it's oriented horizontally. Bar charts are particularly useful when your category labels are long and would be difficult to read if placed vertically along a horizontal axis.

Example: Showing survey results from a question like, "Which social media platform do you use most often?" The platform names can be long, so a bar chart gives them plenty of space.

Line Charts

Use for: Showing a trend or change over a continuous period of time.

Example: Tracking your website's monthly traffic for the past year. A line chart is perfect for showing progression, whether it's sales, stock prices, or website visitors over days, months, or years.

Pie Charts

Use for: Showing the proportion or percentage of different parts that make up a whole.

Example: Breaking down the sources of your website traffic for a single month (e.g., 40% from Organic Search, 30% from Social Media, 20% from Direct Traffic, 10% from Referrals). Warning: Pie charts become difficult to read with more than 5 or 6 categories. If you have many slices, consider a bar or column chart instead.

Scatter Plots (XY Charts)

Use for: Showing the relationship or correlation between two different numerical variables.

Example: Plotting advertising spend (X-axis) against revenue (Y-axis) for each month. A scatter plot helps you see if there's a pattern, such as whether higher ad spend tends to lead to higher revenue.

Combo Charts

Use for: Displaying two different types of data on the same chart. This is often done by combining a column chart with a line chart and using a secondary axis.

Example: Showing monthly sales figures as columns and the gross margin percentage as a line on the same chart. This allows you to see how two different metrics relate to each other over time.

Customizing Your Excel Chart for Clarity and Impact

Excel's default charts are a great starting point, but you should always take a few extra minutes to customize them. A professional-looking chart is clean, clear, and easy to understand at a glance. When you select your chart, two new contextual tabs will appear in the ribbon: Chart Design and Format.

Here are the most important customizations you should make:

• Chart Title: The default title is usually generic. Double-click it and write something descriptive that tells the viewer exactly what the chart is showing, like "Quarterly Sales Performance by Product Category."
• Axis Labels: What do the numbers on the vertical (Y) axis and the categories on the horizontal (X) axis represent? Go to Chart Design > Add Chart Element > Axis Titles to add labels. It’s crucial for removing any guesswork for your audience.
• Data Labels: Sometimes it's helpful to see the exact value of each bar or point on the chart. Go to Add Chart Element > Data Labels to add them. You can show the values directly on top of or next to your chart elements.
• Legend: If you're plotting multiple data series (like our Q1 and Q2 sales), the legend is essential. You can use the options under Add Chart Element > Legend to move it to the top, left, bottom, or right for the best fit.
• Colors and Styles: The Chart Design tab offers a gallery of pre-set color palettes and styles. You can quickly change the entire look and feel of your chart here. For more specific changes, right-click on an individual bar or line and select "Format Data Series" to change its color, border, and other properties from the side panel.

A Pro Tip for Dynamic Charts

Constantly updating your chart’s data range when you add new data is tedious. There's a much better way: use an Excel Table.

Before creating your chart, select your data and press Ctrl+T (or Cmd+T on Mac) to format it as a table. Give your table a name. Now, create your chart based on the data in this table.

The magic happens when you add a new row of data to the bottom of your table. The table will automatically expand to include it, and best of all, your chart will automatically update to include the new data as well! This makes recurring reports incredibly efficient.

Final Thoughts

Creating charts in Excel is a fundamental skill for anyone working with data. By starting with a clean data set, choosing the right chart type for your message, and adding clear titles and labels, you can transform intimidating spreadsheets into powerful visual summaries that drive better decisions.

While mastering Excel charts is a powerful skill, it often begins a cycle of manual weekly reporting—downloading CSVs, cleaning the data, creating the charts, and repeating it all over again next week. At our company, we experienced this firsthand and knew there had to be a better way. We built Graphed to automate that entire tedious process, so you can connect your data sources once and get real-time dashboards that update themselves automatically, letting you spend your time on insights, not busywork.