How to Edit a Chart in Excel

Creating a chart in Excel is often the easy part, turning that basic chart into a clear, professional, and insightful visualization is where the real work begins. If your charts look plain or don't effectively communicate your message, a few simple edits can make all the difference. This guide will walk you through the essential steps to customize and refine your Excel charts, from changing styles and colors to fine-tuning individual elements like titles and labels.

The Chart Editing Command Center: Chart Design and Format

Once you've created a chart, your journey into customization starts by simply clicking on it. When you select your chart, you'll notice two new tabs appear on the Excel Ribbon at the top of your screen: Chart Design and Format. These are your primary control panels for everything we're about to cover.

• The Chart Design tab is all about the big picture: changing the chart type, layout, colors, and the data it displays.
• The Format tab gets into the details, allowing you to fine-tune the appearance of individual elements, like the text, shapes, and borders within your chart.

As a first step, you can also easily move your chart by clicking and dragging it anywhere on your worksheet, or resize it by dragging the corner handles. Now, let's get into the more powerful edits.

Quick Wins: Changing Your Chart's Overall Look and Feel

Sometimes you need a completely different visual or just a quick cosmetic upgrade. These foundational edits can be done in seconds and have a massive impact.

Change the Chart Type

Realized a line chart would tell a better story than your bar chart? No problem. You don't have to start over.

1. Select your chart.
2. Go to the Chart Design tab.
3. Click on Change Chart Type on the right side of the ribbon.
4. A dialog box will open showing all available chart types (Column, Line, Pie, Bar, etc.). Select the new type you want and click OK. Excel will automatically re-map your data to the new format.

Pro Tip: Not all data is suited for every chart type. A pie chart is great for showing parts of a whole (like market share), while a line chart is perfect for showing a trend over time (like monthly sales).

Apply Pre-made Chart Styles and Colors

If you're short on time or not confident in your design skills, Excel offers a gallery of professional styles and color palettes.

• For Styles: In the Chart Design tab, you'll see a gallery called Chart Styles. Hover over the different options to see a live preview of styles that include different backgrounds, borders, and text effects. Click one to apply it.
• For Colors: Next to the styles, click the Change Colors button. Here you'll find a dropdown of color palettes, from vibrant 'Colorful' options to monochromatic schemes. This is a great way to align your chart with brand colors or simply make it more readable.

Switch Rows and Columns

One of the most useful and commonly overlooked features is Switch Row/Column. Let's say you have a bar chart showing sales for different T-shirts (Product A, Product B) over several months. By default, Excel might group the data by product, showing bars for each month side-by-side. If you'd rather group by month to compare products within each month, this button is your best friend.

1. Select your chart.
2. Go to the Chart Design tab.
3. Click Switch Row/Column. Your axes will flip, instantly reorganizing the data visualization. Click it again to revert back.

Refining the Details: Working with Chart Elements

The "chart elements" are the individual components that make up your chart: the title, axes, labels, legend, and more. To add, remove, or modify these, you can use the Add Chart Element menu on the Chart Design tab or, even easier, click the green plus sign (+) that appears in the top-right corner of your selected chart.

Titles: Chart and Axis

A chart without a title is like a story without a headline. It's confusing.

• Chart Title: To add a title, click the plus icon and check the box for Chart Title. To edit it, simply double-click the "Chart Title" text box on your chart and start typing.
• Axis Titles: It's equally important to label your horizontal (X-axis) and vertical (Y-axis) axes. Check the box for Axis Titles. Two new text boxes will appear. Double-click each one to describe what the values represent, such as "Month" or "Sales ($USD)". This provides essential context for your audience.

Data Labeling and Readability with Data Labels

Instead of forcing your viewer to guess a data point's exact value by tracing it back to an axis, you can add the value directly.

1. Click the plus icon and check Data Labels. The values will appear on your data points (e.g., above each bar).
2. For more options, click the small arrow next to the Data Labels checkbox. You can change the position (e.g., Center, Inside End, Outside End) to improve readability.
3. Select More Options... to open a formatting pane where you can customize the numbers (like adding a currency symbol or changing decimal places) or even include the series name alongside the value.

Legend Customization

The legend explains what each color or pattern in your chart represents. You can easily control its placement.

• Click the plus icon, hover over Legend, and choose a position: Right, Top, Left, or Bottom. Placing the legend at the top or right is generally considered best practice for readability.

Gridlines

Gridlines are the faint lines running in the background of your chart plot area that help the eye follow data points to their corresponding axis values.

• Check the Gridlines box in the Chart Elements menu to toggle them.
• Click the arrow next to it to choose which gridlines to show (Primary Major Horizontal, Primary Major Vertical, etc.). Adding subtle horizontal gridlines is usually helpful, but too many can make your chart look cluttered.

Editing the Source Data

Your chart is directly linked to an underlying data set. Editing what data is displayed is a core part of charting.

Modifying Data on the Fly with Chart Filters

Need to temporarily hide a certain product or time period without deleting the data itself? Use Chart Filters - the funnel-shaped icon that appears next to your chart when you select it.

1. Click on your chart to select it.
2. Click the Filter icon (the funnel).
3. You'll see two tabs: Series and Categories. Uncheck any items you want to temporarily hide from the chart.
4. Click Apply, and your chart will update instantly. This is a non-destructive way to focus your chart on a specific insight.

Changing the Data Source or Range

If you need to add a new row of data or remove a series permanently, you should edit the source data range.

1. Select your chart, then go to the Chart Design tab.
2. Click Select Data.
3. A dialog box will appear. You can click and drag in your worksheet to define a new Chart data range, or use the menu to add, edit, or remove specific Legend Entries (Series) and Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels.
4. Once you're done, click OK.

Of course, the simplest way is to just add or change data in the source cells your chart is already looking at. Excel will update the visualization automatically in real-time.

Advanced Formatting for a Professional Polish

To take your chart from good to great, you need to dive into the Format Pane. You can access it by double-clicking any chart element or by right-clicking an element and choosing "Format [Element Name]..." (e.g., "Format Data Series").

Customizing an Individual Data Point

Want to highlight a specific bar or pie slice - like your best-selling product? You can edit it individually.

1. Click once on the data series (e.g., the blue bars). All the blue bars will be selected.
2. Wait a second, and then click again on the single bar you want highlighted. Now only that bar is selected.
3. In the Format pane on the right, you can now change its fill color, add a border, or apply a shadow effect to make it stand out from the rest.

Formatting an Axis

The default axis range isn't always optimal. You might want to adjust it to better emphasize changes in your data. Double-click the vertical (value) axis to bring up the Format Axis pane. Under Axis Options, you can set:

• Bounds: This allows you to set the minimum and maximum values displayed. For example, if all your values are between 1,000 and 1,200, you can set your minimum bound to 950 to zoom in on the variation.
• Units: This controls the spacing of your gridlines and axis labels (e.g., show a tick mark every $100).
• Number: At the bottom of Axis Options, you can format the axis labels as currency, percentages, or a custom format.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to edit charts in Excel is a fundamental skill for anyone working with data. By mastering the Chart Design and Format tabs and understanding how to manipulate individual chart elements, you can transform basic graphs into powerful, persuasive visual stories that make your insights clear and memorable.

While mastering Excel is incredibly valuable, we know it can be a slow, manual process. If you find yourself spending more time clicking through format menus than actually analyzing your data, we built Graphed to help. Instead of manually editing data ranges, titles, and colors, you can simply ask for the dashboard you need in plain English. That lets you get back to making data-driven decisions in seconds, not hours.