Technical Instructional Pages (TIPs)
for California State University Students, Staff and Faculty
Most Commonly Asked Technology Questions
Creating a Chart or Graph in Excel
These instructions apply to Excel 2000, XP, 2002, and 2003
INSTRUCTIONS
1. First, highlight the labels and numbers you will use for your chart. Do not include the total at the bottom of a list of numbers if you are just charting the numbers in the list. In other words, in this example, do not include the $54,655.
2. Selecting Discontinuous Cells: In this example, suppose we want to graph just the item column and the value column. Here is how you do it:
a. Drag the mouse over cells A4 through A7. Do NOT include the cell with the word "Total" in it.
b. Take your finger off the mouse.
c. Hold down the Control (Ctrl) key on your keyboard.
d. While holding the Control key down, drag the mouse over cells D4 through D7. Do NOT include the cell with the $54,655 in it.
e. Take your finger off the mouse, then take your finger off the control key.
3. Look for the Chart Wizard button 
(blue, yellow, and red) and click on it once.
4. Choose the type of chart you want on the left, and the sub-type on the right. In this example, we will use a column chart. Click Next.
5. This screen you normally won't have to change, so click Next.
6. In the Titles box, type the chart title, in this case "Inventory Value".
7. Before you go to the next step, click on the Legend tab. You will notice that a Series 1 legend appears on the chart which is really not applicable to this type of chart. So click in the box next to Legend to get rid of the legend. Click Next.
8. You now have a choice of having your chart appear on your worksheet or on a separate sheet by itself. In this example, we will have it appear on the worksheet. Click Finish.
9. To move the chart around on your worksheet, click on a white space in the chart and drag it. (Don't click on any elements of the chart to do this.)
TIPs were created through a TIGERS (Technology Integration Grants for Educational Resource Sharing)
grant
from the California State University
Center for Distributed Learning (CDL).
Project Lead: Fred Fuld, CSU East Bay Concord Campus
Project Team Member: Marion Smith, CSU Dominguez Hills