Bubble and Area chart

Combination charts are a great opportunity to create a really creative and memorable data presentation. Unfortunately, you can't choose the Bubble chart as an alternative chart type for line, area, etc. charts in the Change Chart Type dialog box (see Using two axes in the one chart). This tip shows how to combine two different chart types into one chart.

The Area chart for Investments

Many financial and non-financial companies like Yahoo provide investment portfolio tracking services but do not offer the ability to change the appearance of the charts. Microsoft Excel gives you full flexibility by providing different types of customizable charts. E.g., there are a few variations of the Area chart for tracking the value and costs of your portfolio.

Simple combination chart

Sometimes you want to show a single chart with a series of different chart types. These charts containing data series with different chart types for each of them (lines, columns, areas, scatter, etc.) are called combo or combination charts:

How to add labels to the Mosaic plot

This is the third and last part of the tip How to create a Mosaic plot in Excel (the second part is How to create a step Area chart for the Mosaic plot in Excel). The step area chart created in the previous part has invalid labels for both axes and no data labels:

How to add separators to the Marimekko chart

This is the second part of the tip How to create a Marimekko or Mekko chart in Excel. In the first part of this tip, a step Area chart was created:

How to create a Marimekko chart or Mekko chart in Excel

The distribution of market shares or stocks of the investment portfolio often is illustrated by pie or doughnut charts. The illustration of multi-market shares and multiple investment portfolios calls for different approaches. The Marimekko chart (also known as Mekko chart, or mosaic plot) comes to the rescue.

Combining several charts into one chart

If you want to combine more than two different data series with common horizontal and different vertical values, you could not just add another axis to the chart. You need to combine several charts into one chart.

How to combine different data in one chart

To make your data more information, you can combine different chars in many ways.

How to select an invisible element in the chart

Some chart elements are hard to find for customization, or they are not visible at all. For example, added or updated data series may not be visible due to chart settings: located in an invisible data range, displayed with invisible markers, with disabled fill color, or because of the background image:

How to add labels to the Marimekko chart

This is the third, last part of the tip How to create a Marimekko or Mekko chart in Excel (the second part is How to add separators to the Marimekko chart). The area chart created in the previous part needs data labels: