Chapter 15: Charts

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Overview

Microsoft Excel's charting feature is an impressive tool. A chart allows the user to graphically display almost any type of data stored in a worksheet. There are times when a chart is more meaningful than a list of numbers. For example, a user might have a better grasp of the increase and decrease of monthly sales if shown using a line or bar chart. To write the same kind of information in simple text would take many paragraphs and not flow all that well.

When creating charts, there are more than 100 types to choose from. With the many objects contained within the charts, such as the Legend, the x-axis and the y-axis, and the Chart Titles, the end result will differ greatly from chart to chart depending on your formatting requirements.

The Chart object itself and the objects contained within the chart can be modified directly by the user or with a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro.

In this chapter, you'll learn about the key concepts required to write the VBA code that generates and manipulates charts. The code is designed to show you how to create and gain access to the ChartObjects collection within the workbook. You'll also learn how to modify existing charts, their data series, and their formats, as well as how to use descriptive chart labels that refer to cell references.

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