4: Presenting Data with Charts

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One of the most important things to consider when using charts in Excel is that they are intended to be used for communicating an idea to an audience. Your audience can be reading your charts in a written document or listening to you in a live presentation. In fact, Excel charts are often imported or pasted into Word documents or PowerPoint slides, which serve this very purpose of communicating ideas to an audience. Although there are no rules set in stone for using specific charts for certain data types, some chart types are designed to communicate certain messages better than others. This chapter explores numerous charts that can be used for a variety of purposes. In addition, we will examine formatting charts and using those charts in Word and PowerPoint documents.