Continuing on with our “What’s inside Excel Everest?” series, which showcases the introductory, “Why is this important?” paragraphs found within Excel Everest.

…why is it important to learn?…

Charts

Charts, charts, charts. What would data be without the ability to communicate it visually? No one can easily look at a table of numbers and pick out patterns. In order to make sense of your numbers and clearly communicate what you’re getting at, you’ll need to use charts.

Charts are a key feature in Excel and have countless options, parameters, styles, etc. We certainly can’t teach everything there is to know about charts in this Excel tutorial, but once you understand the basics of how to build a chart, what a chart “series” is, and where to find the different formatting options, you should be making beautiful charts in no time. Charts, like everything in Excel (but even more so), require lots of playing to get them to look like you want. If you don’t spend 15 minutes fumbling with the formatting of a chart you’ve never built before, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Excel 2007 vastly improved upon Excel 2003 in terms of helping you create simple, nice looking charts. The only downside to this new system is if you’re familiar with charting in 2003, it will take a bit of time to get used to the new menus and options in 2007.