Creating picture charts

Excel 365 2016 2013 2010 2007
Excel makes it easy to incorporate a pattern, texture, or graphic file for elements in your chart. E.g., you can create funny burger sales chart for your colleagues.
The picture Chart in Excel 2003

To convert a data series to pictures, follow these steps:

   1.   Start with a column or bar chart (either standard or 3-D).

   2.   Then, select the series and in the popup menu choose Format Data Series... to open dialog box:

popup data series in Excel 2003

   3.   In the Patterns tab click the Fill Effects... button:

Format Data Series in Excel 2003

   4.   In the Fill Effects dialog box, click the Picture tab and then click the Select Picture button to locate the graphics file that you want to use.

Select Picture in Excel 2003

   5.   Click OK to close dialog box.

You'll probably find that you need to play around with the settings to make your graphics work out the way you'd like.

Adding error bars

Adding error bars

For certain chart types, you can add error bars to your chart. Error bars often are used to indicate 'plus or minus' information that reflects uncertainty in the data.
How to fix the chart data

How to fix the chart data

You can unlink a chart from its data ranges and produce a static chart that remains unaffected by later changes in the data.
Adding a background image to the spreadsheet

Adding a background image to the spreadsheet

You can make your Excel spreadsheets more appealing by choosing graphics file to serve as a background for a spreadsheet similar to the wallpaper that you may display on your Windows desktop.

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