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Formatting help

3G

3G

Member
Hi there-

I'm struggling with trying to fit a data chart on a page in a 14 point font. There comes a certain point where if I make a cell to tall, or, to wide, it takes the chart and makes it smaller. There is a signficant amount of blank space on the page, and, I want to make the chart legible with a decent size font.


So...what controls the overall amount of space on a page? Cell height? Width? Font size?


I realize it's a little bit of everythign, but, if I'm going to try to rebuild the chart to fit on 1 page, I would like to know what to keep my eye on.


thanks!

3g
 
My idea would be to first draw a rectangle from the shapes menu. Under properties - size, you can set the exact dimensions of the shape (uses region settings, e.g. inches). If you know what size paper you are printing on and margins, this should help you figure out how big to make the rectangle.

Then, manually adjust the size of your chart to match. Set chart properties to not move or size with cells.


Does that help?
 
Have you tried adjusting the margin of the page, if the graph stands alone on a different worksheet?
 
Hmm...maybe I didn't make sense.


I guess what I'm looking for is a "rule of thumb" when it comes to creating dashboards/charts/data & chart combo reports to fit onto a single page, and be legible. My biggest problem sometimes is that, while the chart "fits" onto a page, the font gets so reduced that it's almost unreadable...even by our mid-20s Intern :). Granted, we never really build out anything that keeps the cells their standard/normal size like when the sheet is blank. Just wondeirng if there's a point where you cross a threshold where things will begin to shrink (i.e. how many cells "wide" can you go before it starts to reduce itself visually).
 
The fonts should be the same size printed as they are on-screen, as a proportion of the printed area of your worksheet. The cells will all fall inside the margin on a regular worksheet, so unless you chart falls just inside the edge of cells on the right and bottom, you will get extra space until the next edge of the row or column.


If the chart stands alone and is not part of a larger worksheet, in Excel 2007 and up you can have a seperate chart sheet that just contains a chart:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/placing-charts-in-excel.html

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-move-an-embedded-excel-2010-chart-to-its-ow.html


You can increase the font sizes in your charts as desired. You can hit Print Preview if unsure how it will print.

So...what controls the overall amount of space on a page? Cell height? Width? Font size?
Click to expand...

In a regular worksheet, if you have Fit to 1 page Wide by 1 Page tall in the print settings, the print area is scaled down if necessary to fit on the page, "rounded down in size" so only whole cells fall on the page and are not divided at page breaks. Then your specified margins are left blank on top of any leftover cell space.


The larger your print area, the less relevant your font size is to the size of text, since the text will be scaled down with the page.


On a separate chart page, font scaling is less confusing, since it depends only on the shape of your chart (I think -- it might even be absolutely correct to how it will print)


So--I think the main considerations on a regular worksheet are -- picture the whole print area of the worksheet with the chart as you see it on-screen. If with all that scaled to fit the page, the text is too small, increase the font of the text, or increase the size of the chart as a proportion of the print area.
 
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