| September 2003 Tip of the Month | | Tip of the Month Archive | |
Creating Custom Charts in Excel
Sometimes you need to create a chart in Excel that is not available as the either a standard type or a custom type, and you need to create your own custom chart. For example, perhaps you have 5 series you wish to plot. Four of the series you want to be line graphs, all on one axis, and the other series you want to be bar a graph, on a second axis.
- To accomplish this, you would begin by making a standard graph in
excel, initially making all the series lines.

- Select the series you want to change to a bar graph. Then right click
on the series, and select "Chart Type." Then select the
type of series you want, in this instance "Column," and
click OK.

- At this point, you want the series in columns to be on a secondary
axis. To do this, right click on a data point, select "Format
Data Series," click on the "Axis" tab, and click "Secondary
Axis."
- To save this type of chart to use again, select the plot area of your chart. Right click and select "Chart Type." Select the "Custom Types" tab; within this tab click on "User Defined." Click the "Add" button. Give the chart type a name, and a description if you wish. Click OK. This will create your custom chart.


