Creating charts

- Creating a chart in Excel, which is nothing…other than a visual representation of numeric data,…is surprisingly easy, and you can quickly embellish it…with a variety of visual effects.…And let's be clear, the term we use is chart.…You might call it a graph, but officially and formally…in Excel we talk about charts.…And we're about to create one…with this set of data right here,…starting in columns D through I.…Before creating a chart,…highlight the data that you want to show.…And it must include some values, otherwise,…you'll have pretty much of an empty chart.…

If you do have totals next to your data, leave them off.…Totals and details don't work so well together.…Always include the row that you typically have…on top of the data that describes each column,…and the column that you typically have…on the left side that describes each row.…And if you're in a hurry, you can use…a great keystroke shortcut combination, Alt + F1.…That's using the function key F1.…Alt + F1 immediately creates…what we call a clustered column chart.…