We make charts with date axis all the time. For example, lets say you want to plot the number of donuts consumed per month in a chart, like this:
2 things become quite obvious when you look at this chart,
- The year -09 and -10 repeating across bottom of axis is pure chart junk.
- Aww, dude. How many donuts do you eat!?!
Now, there is nothing much I can do about donut consumption. But I can tell you how to fix that axis so it looks a lot better, may be like this:
Interested? Follow this simple recipe:
- Process your data: Assuming your data looks like what I shown to left, just use simple formulas to make it look like the table to right. [related: how to work with dates & times in excel]
- Now, make a chart from the data. Use both year and month columns for axis label series.
- That is all. Excel shows nicely grouped axis labels on your chart.
Pretty simple, eh?
Download the Excel Chart Template
Click here to download excel chart template & workbook showing this technique. Play with the formulas & chart formatting to learn.
2 Bonus Tips:
1. This technique really works with just any types of data.
So you can just have Product Group & Product Name in 2 columns and when you make a chart, excel groups the labels in axis.
2. Further reduce clutter by unchecking Multi Level Category Labels option
You can make the chart even more crispier by removing lines separating month names. To do this select the axis, press CTRL + 1 (opens format dialog). From Axis options, un-check Multi Level Category Labels option.
How do you format date axis on charts?
Most of the times when I make charts with date axis, the axis has 12 or 13 months of data. So I knock off the year part completely. But in some cases, I end up making charts that show data from multiple years. Now, repeating year value across bottom is a waste of chart ink. So I tend to use the above technique to make the chart look much more professional.
What about you? How do you format date axis? Please share your ideas and experiences using comments.
More Charting Formatting Tips:
- How to change data labels in charts to whatever you want
- Making your chart legends look awesome
- Use paste special to Speed up chart formatting
- … More chart formatting tips
8 Responses to “Top 5 keyboard shortcuts for Excel Charts”
As far as I remember (checked, again, 2 minutes ago) in my "Excel 2013" in order to select various chart elements I need to use the Arrow keys and not the TAB key.
Practically, the TAB key does nothing (within a Chart).
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Michael (Micky) Avidan
Thanks for pointing this out. This is how I remember it too, but when I was recording the video yesterday, only TAB key worked. MS must have changed the keys in Excel 2016. I have edited the post to include both keys.
The key navigation on charts is different in 2016.
TAB cycles through a layer of objects (SHIFT+TAB cycles backwards)
ENTER move down a layer
ESC moves up a layer
So on a column chart with title/legend/data labels if you select the plotarea the TAB will go through Title > Legend > Plotarea.
ENTER at plotarea will then select Vertical axis. Tab will take you through
Horizontal axis > gridlines > Series > Horizontal Axis.
ENTER with series selected will then allow you to TAB through individual data points and data labels.
If you ENTER on datalabels you can TAB through each data label.
ALT + F1 : to create default chart
ALT+E S T = CTRL + ALT + V, T : I find that easier to remember
I second what Michael already said about TAB and arrow keys. I can't help but think if this is related to the "," or ";" as separator. I prefer to use the chart tools - layout- drop down box, anyway.
Got to be F11 for instant charting. Highlight your data , hit F11 and voila! ?
Ctrl+1 is the most important chart shortcut. In fact, it works for any Excel object: whatever is selected, Ctrl+1 opens the task pane or dialog to format that object.
Somewhere along the line, maybe when Excel 2016 came out, the arrow keys stopped working to cycle through the elements of a chart. But what works is holding Ctrl while clicking the arrow keys. I haven't gotten used to the Tab and other keys, but as long as Ctrl+Arrow works, I'm good.
And F4 used to be so helpful when formatting a lot of charts. But since Excel 2007 came out, it has been mostly useless. It used to remember a whole set of changes at once, so I get that the newer modeless dialogs make that impractical. But now it only seems to work with formatting of lines and borders, and maybe fills. I find myself writing a lot of VBA one-liners in the Immediate Window to handle these tedious formatting tasks.
after clicking on a chart, is there a shortcut key to copy it?
Thank you for the Alt E S T - tip. This is more than a time saver. Because of dynamic charts or de-activated external references to data when you make the charts, you often have empty charts that are otherwise impossible to format. So this shortcut helps adressing that. I will work with it more and see if there remain some obstacles.