Creating and Navigating in Charts

Creating and Navigating in Charts

Charts are a quintessentially graphical item, but Excel also provides a couple of keyboard shortcuts worth knowing. You can access a chart sheet just as you would any other worksheet, by pressing [Ctrl] - [PageDown] (to move to the next worksheet) or [Ctrl] - [PageUp] (to move to the previous worksheet) until the chart sheet is selected.

Shortcuts for Creating and Navigating in Charts

Create a chart from the selected range

[F11] , [Alt] - [F1]

This shortcut creates a chart using the default chart type. If you often create charts of the same type, you can customize the default chart setting. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Right-click a chart and choose Chart Type from the shortcut menu to display the Chart Type dialog box. Alternatively, select the chart and choose Chart Chart Type.

2. Select the chart type on the Standard Types tab or the Custom Types tab.

3. Click the Set as Default Chart button. Excel displays a confirmation dialog box.

4. Click the Yes button.

5. Click the OK button to close the Chart Type dialog box.

Select the next chart component in the direction of the arrow

[ ] , [ ’ ] , [ ‘ ] , [ “ ]

With a chart component selected, you can press , ’ , ‘ , or “ to move the selection to another component. For example, press ’ to select the next item to the right of the currently selected item.