Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll
Preview
Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video
Overview of what the Chart Area and Plot Area are in an Excel chart.
Example Excel Spreadsheet
Related Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign upRelated Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign up
[SOUND] Now that we know why
data visualization is important,
0:00
and are aware of some of the different
charts we can use in Excel,
0:04
we're gonna cover the formatting and
layout of charts.
0:10
As well as chart elements in Excel.
0:14
We'll talk to the different
components of charts in Excel and
0:17
show you what they mean and
how to use them.
0:20
I've broken up the content in this section
so that it's easy for you to go back and
0:23
reference different videos for
a refresher in the future.
0:27
Note, that not all chart elements
are available for every chart type.
0:31
For example, you can't add
a trend line to a column chart.
0:35
We'll cover trend lines more later.
0:39
For now, let's get started by
covering chart area versus plot area.
0:41
The simple distinction
between chart area and
0:46
plot area is that the plot area
is inside of the chart area.
0:50
In other words, the chart area
is the entire area of the chart,
0:55
and the plot area is where the data
is actually displayed or plotted.
1:00
So going back to our
gym membership example,
1:06
if I click on the chart,
you see these two lines.
1:10
The outer line is
bordering the chart area.
1:14
The inner line is bordering the plot area.
1:19
So I can scroll over that,
you see Plot Area.
1:21
I scroll over this, it says Chart Area.
1:23
Let me change the border of the plot
area to make this very explicit.
1:28
So I'm gonna make it a solid line,
I'm gonna make it red and
1:34
I wanna make it size two.
1:37
So I'm gonna deselect all that and
1:42
you can see the plot area has been
bordered by that thick red line.
1:43
Everything in your chart, including
the plot area, is the chart area.
1:49
You can change the color of the chart and
plot areas, not just the border, but
1:54
also the background.
1:58
So I'm going to go here and
format the chart area.
2:01
I'm going to, not change the border,
I wanna change the fill.
2:05
So I'll do a solid blue.
2:09
Okay, that's kinda weird.
2:13
Make it a light gray.
2:15
That's also kind of odd.
2:16
I don't typically like filling in my plot
or chart areas but there are certain
2:17
examples where having different background
colors could be very good, aesthetically.
2:24
So, again, sometimes you're gonna
have to use your own judgment.
2:29
Now, another thing to highlight, and you
might have noticed it when I was showing
2:34
you the example earlier,
is that you can have no fill.
2:38
I also wanna do that on the chart area,
so no fill again.
2:42
Why would you do that?
2:45
Well, you might wanna do this if you're
copying your charts into a presentation.
2:47
That way the formatting
of your presentation will
2:51
not be disturbed by
the chart that you insert.
2:54
So let's take a look at this.
2:57
So I'm gonna copy this.
2:58
And then, I'm gonna go over here to this
hypothetical presentation about gyms,
3:01
and I'm going to paste.
3:08
And you can see the background is
the same as the slide background.
3:09
But, if I go back to Excel and
I change it so
3:14
there is a solid fill, and
then I copy this again,
3:18
then I go back to the power point
to delete the first chart I added.
3:23
Now, the background color is grey and
it looks kind of off,
3:31
not to mention the fact that that red
box around the plot area is pretty ugly.
3:35
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign upYou need to sign up for Treehouse in order to set up Workspace
Sign up