C.1 Manually Adding and Editing Chart Data Series

In Lesson 6, we discussed how to use Excel to create charts to visually depict data. The easiest way to create a chart is to first select the data you wish to add to the chart and then use the charting menu items to insert the chart. In most cases, this approach will create the correct chart. There are times when Excel does not automatically create the right chart or when it is difficult to select all of the values needed before inserting the chart. In these situations, it is possible to add a data series once a chart is created.

Data series can be edited and added manually only in the desktop versions of Excel. While this feature will likely be added to Excel online in the future, tools for working with chart data series are very limited. In this appendix, we will demonstrate how some of the charts we created in Lesson 6 can also be created by manually manipulating the chart data series.