Learn about charts
Charts are used to display series of numeric data in a graphical format to make it easier to understand large quantities of data and the relationship between different series of data.
To create a chart in Excel, you start by entering the numeric data for the chart on a worksheet. Then you can plot that data into a chart by selecting the chart type that you want to use on the Office Fluent Ribbon (Insert tab, Charts group).
Worksheet data and chart
1. Worksheet data
2. Chart created from worksheet data
Excel supports many types of charts to help you display data in ways that are meaningful to your audience. When you create a chart or change an existing chart, you can select from a variety of chart types (such as a column chart or a pie chart) and their sub types (such as a stacked column chart or a pie in 3-D chart). You can also create a combination chart by using more than one chart type in your chart.
Chart with formatting
Example of a combination chart that uses a column and line chart type.
For more information about the chart types that you can select in Excel, see Available chart types.
Getting to know the elements of a chart
A chart has many elements. Some of these elements are displayed by default, others can be added as needed. You can change the display of the chart elements by moving them to other locations in the chart, residing them, or by changing the format. You can also remove chart elements that you do not want to display.