Last week I introduced the technique of using custom Number Formats for Chart Axis Labels which was well received.
So Today I present a few more alternatives, some being sourced from comments raised in the first post
Highlight Axis Ranges in Color
Axis Number Format: [Blue][<=40]0;[Red][>=100]0;[Green]0
Axis Font: Normal
Highlight Thousands as K
Axis Number Format: [<=1000]#,##0;[>1000]#,##0.0, K;0
Axis Font: Normal
Highlight Data Labels
In the original post I mentioned briefly that this technique can be applied to Data Labels, but didn’t demonstrate it.
Data Labels Colored according to Value
Axis Number Format: [Blue][<80]0;[Red][>=80]0
Axis Font: Normal
Data Label Number Format: [Blue][<80]0;[Red][>=80]0
Data Label Font: Normal
Data Labels Highlighted with Symbols
Axis Number Format: [Blue][=80]”4″;[Red][=60]”8″;
Axis Font: Webding
Data Label Format: [Blue][>=80]”P”;[Red][<80]”O”;
Data label Font: Wing Dings 2
SO HOW DO THESE WORK?
As with cells you can apply custom Number formats to any of the Charts numerical objects including the Charts Axis and Data Point Labels.
You can read a full discussion in the original post or …
Select the Chart and then the Axis or Data Point Labels.
Goto the Number Tab and select Custom
Insert the formats text, Add
Apply
Links
The links below will explain the intricacies of Custom Number Formats.
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/NumberFormats.html
http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/excel-custom-number-formats.htm
http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/02/25/custom-cell-formatting-in-excel-few-tips-tricks/
Examples
You can see how all the above Charts are made using the Sample Data Files Attached
Version – Excel 1997/03, Excel 2007/10.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE CUSTOM NUMBER FORMATS?
What are your favourite custom number formats?
Let us know in the Comments below:
Hui…
For a list of my other contributions at Chandoo.org please visit: Hui…
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.