Page 554 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

536 Worksheet Charting 101
Formatting elements of a chart
Excel 2013 offers you several methods for formatting particular elements
of any chart that you create. The most direct way is to right-click the chart element (title, plot area, legend, data series, and so forth) in the chart itself. Doing so displays a mini-bar with options such as Fill, Outline, and (in the case of chart titles), Style. You can then use the drop-down galleries and menus attached to these buttons to connect the selected chart element.
If the mini-bar formatting options aren’t sufficient for the kind of changes you want to make to a particular chart element, you can open a task bar for the element. The easiest way to do this is by right-clicking the element in
the chart and then selecting the Format option at the bottom of the shortcut menu that appears. This Format option, like the task pane that opens on the right side of the worksheet window, is followed by the name of the element selected so that when the Chart Title is selected, this menu option is called Format Chart Title, and the task pane that opens when you select this option is labeled Format Chart Title. (See Figure 1-11.)
The element’s task pane contains groups of options, often divided into two categories: Options for the selected element on the left — such as Title Options in the Format Chart Title task pane or Legend Options in the Format Legend task pane — and Text Options on the right. Each group, when selected, then displays its own cluster of buttons and each button, when selected has its own collection of formatting options, often displayed only when expanded by clicking the option name.
You can click the drop-down button found to the immediate right of any Options group in any Format task pane to display a drop-down menu with
a complete list of all the elements in that chart. To select another element for formatting, simply select its name from this drop-down list. Excel then selects that element in the chart and switches to its Format task pane so that you have access to all its groups of formatting options.
Keep in mind that the Format tab on the Chart Tools contextual tab also con- tains a Shape Styles and WordArt Styles group of command buttons that you can sometimes use to format the element you’ve selected in chart. Table 1-2, shown earlier in this chapter, gives you the lowdown on the command buttons in these groups on the Format tab.
Formatting chart titles with the Format Chart Title task pane
When you choose the Format Chart Title option from a chart title’s shortcut menu, Excel displays a Format Chart Title task pane similar to the one shown in Figure 1-11. The Title Options group is automatically selected as is the Fill & Line button (with the paint can icon).