Charts are great way to tell story about what is going on in your business. But they also feel a bit too impersonal and meh. How about adding your personality to them? I don’t mean making them tall, dark and pretty. I mean using hand-drawing style to make them pop out. Something like this example of hand-drawn chart:
The best thing is, You don’t need to actually draw these charts by hand. We can use a powerful charting trick to get these charts automatically generated (and linked) to your data. Interested? Read on to learn how to create hand-drawn charts in Excel.
Hand-drawn charts – Set up your data
Let’s say you have some data like this:
Add 2 more columns so that you can split the data in to Head & Rest like this:
Make a regular stacked column chart from your data
Select head & rest columns and insert a normal stacked column chart. Make sure head is on top of rest. You will get this:
Time to get drawing – create head & body images
Using your favorite drawing program (MS Paint / Power Point / Paint.Net or good old Excel itself), make a column drawing. Use the free form scribble tool from Insert > Shape to create these drawings in Excel or Power Point. See this demo:
How to create a hand-drawn column or bar in Excel?
Crop and split the drawing in to head & rest:
Once you made the drawing, paste it in to Excel as an image. Using Format ribbon, crop this in to head & tail as shown below:
Replace the column fill with images now – Ctrl+C Ctrl+V time…
Time to use the most important shortcuts in the world. CTRL+C and CTRL+V.
- Copy the head image from your drawing (CTRL+C)
- Select head series in the chart
- Paste (CTRL+V)
Bonus tip: Use images and shapes in your charts to prettify them
That is all. Your hand-drawn chart is ready. Share it with a colleague or boss and see them drool.
More hand-drawn inspiration for you…
Here are few more examples of what you could achieve with this technique.
Hand-drawn bar chart:
Hand-drawn line chart:
Caution: Don’t go overboard
I am a big fan of story telling with charts. While I appreciate the flexibility and possibilities Excel (and other tools like Power BI) offers, I strongly recommend that you do not go overboard with formatting charts. When used in moderation (or for a particular situation) these charts can evoke a laugh, thought or both. But when used in excess or out-of-place these can look silly. You have been warned.
See the entire thing in 90 seconds
Check out this recipe style video (with peppy background score) to re-cap all the key steps for creating hand-drawn charts.
You can also watch this on Chandoo.org YouTube Channel.
Download hand-drawn charts template
Click here to download free template with a few charts. Paste your data to get the charts or use the images elsewhere.
More creative charting techniques for you…
If you liked this hand-drawn chart, you will love below examples too:
Budget vs. Actual chart with variance & emotion:
Salary & Performance in a jitter plot
Twisted column charts (E90E50 Charts)
Tried your hand at hand-drawn charts?
Excuse the pun. How did it go? Did it draw crowd’s attention? Share your story and examples in the comments.
22 Responses to “Master Excel 2007 Ribbon with this Free Learning Guide”
Thank you, kind sir. Well done with the baby making.
I cannot get signed up for your newsletter. I tied both this email address and churchill2001@hotmail.com. never a response.
I cannot get signed up for your newsletter. I tied both this email address and churchill2001_at_hotmail_dot_com. never a response for either attempt.
@Doug, it shows that your email address is pending verification. Can you check your inbox (and may be spam folder too) for an email from me? The subject will be "Activate Subscription to Get your Free Excel Tips E-book"
[...] PPS: If you are struggling with ribbon, you should check out ribbon learning guide. [...]
Very Useful Info..Keep it up..
@Ajay.. you are welcome 🙂
how do u download microsoft excel for free?
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
Select Office
Free Trial
[...] Excel 2010 UI looks considerably better and less stressful than 2007. The colors are dull and subtle. The icons don’t call for attention unless you want to do something. The menus / ribbons feel smoother and slicker. [Learn to use Excel Ribbon with this Free e-Book] [...]
I can't open this pdf. I get the error message:
You do not have the required license to open this file.
Please request a license from the creator of the file, and add it using the license manager and they try opening it again.
What gives??
I downloaded the file again and it worked this time. Strange. (First file was 116 KB, second was 1644 KB... ???)
[...] More ribbon goodness | Free e-book to learn Excel Ribbon [...]
Hi Chandoo,
thanks for sharing your Excel 2007 learning experience with us; unfortunately the link to the pdf of the free Excel 2007 learning guide seems broken: my Acrobate Readers flags: "Unkown file type or corrupte data".
Have a nice day
Michael
well done this is great
Can somebody just provide a link the classic TAB exportedUI files for MS Office 2003 for us to use in office 2007/2010?. searching online, everybody just wnats to make a buck online with silly Classic Tab installers which do nothing more than inport exportedUI files for you.
Don't give me a ribbon how to guide, just give me free exportedUI files. I should not have to pay anyone for this, it is free XML, MS should have included this to begin with.
thanks
Dear.
There are a set of debit values and a set ot credit values in a column. I want a vba code by whcich the debit value plus a single / multiple credit value is zero that needs to be marked .
finally i will come to know out of the avaibale debits which cannot be used the with avilable credits either single or multiple values.
If multiple matching sets are available let it take the 1st or the 2nd one its not an issue.
Column A Ref
-1000 A
-5000 B
-8000 C
800 A
100 A
100 A
2000 B
3000 B
13000
15000
hi...
how to make this add-ins and display in ribbon... check this sample : http://www.cprsoft.com/GCDemo01.htm
thank you sir...
Please tell me format painter short cut key In excel ?
Thanks In Advance
thankfully.likeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I am very much happy for such a great opportunity given to excel learners to advance their skills for the betterment of the future. I am a great user of this site and feel proud to have come across this web site.
I appreciate this, because I didn't do much works in my project management studies using gantt chart. As of now are have now learned some advancement.