Repositioning Chart Elements with the Mouse

You can move the chart title, axis titles, data labels, and legend by dragging them with the mouse. You can also use your mouse to explode a pie slice or doughnut bite. Note, in particular, that you can adjust the positions of individual data labels without moving an entire series of labels; in addition, although Excel creates legends in certain fixed positions, you're free to drag them anywhere you like, even to the middle of the chart.

To restore the default position of an object immediately after you move it, press Ctrl+Z. To restore its initial position later, delete the object, and then re-create it.

Unfortunately, although you can move data labels at will, you have no such freedom with the tick-mark labels that appear along your axes. You can rotate these, but you cannot pick them up and drop them elsewhere. In addition, you cannot do anything with individual axis labels; you can modify them only as a group. Therefore, if you want to change the color of a particular label or move it inside the plot area, you're out of luck. You need to create individual text annotations to serve as axis labels.

For information about rotating axis labels, see "Changing the Rotation of Chart Text" on page 627. For information about adding text annotations, see "Adding Text Annotations" on page 628.