Referring to Podcast #1408 where Bill showed us how to moved a Chart Legend, Bill begins today's podcast by describing and demonstrating not only the Moving of a Chart Legend but the Changing of it as well. Follow along with Episode #1693 to learn where and how to make the fix in Excel 2007, Excel 2010 and Excel 2013.
Need Chart and Graph information? Use Excel 2013's radically revamped charting and graphing tools to communicate more clearly, powerfully, and quickly... so you drive your message home, and get the decisions and actions you're looking for! Charts and Graphs Excel 2013 by Bill Jelen Charts and Graphs Excel 2013
and for Excel knowledge spanning Excel 2007 to Excel 2010...
"Learn Excel 2007 through Excel 2010 from MrExcel". Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 512 Excel Mysteries Solved! 35% More Tips than the previous edition of Bill's book! Power Excel With MrExcel - 2017 Edition
"The Learn Excel from MrExcel Podcast Series"
MrExcel.com — Your One Stop for Excel Tips and Solutions. Visit us today!
Need Chart and Graph information? Use Excel 2013's radically revamped charting and graphing tools to communicate more clearly, powerfully, and quickly... so you drive your message home, and get the decisions and actions you're looking for! Charts and Graphs Excel 2013 by Bill Jelen Charts and Graphs Excel 2013
and for Excel knowledge spanning Excel 2007 to Excel 2010...
"Learn Excel 2007 through Excel 2010 from MrExcel". Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 512 Excel Mysteries Solved! 35% More Tips than the previous edition of Bill's book! Power Excel With MrExcel - 2017 Edition
"The Learn Excel from MrExcel Podcast Series"
MrExcel.com — Your One Stop for Excel Tips and Solutions. Visit us today!
Transcript of the video:
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Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1693 – Chart Legend Changes.
Hey. Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I’m Bill Jelen.
Well, this podcast is because of podcast 1408. There I talked about moving the chart legend and a lot of comments came in and said, “Well, all you did was move it.
You didn’t tell us how to change the chart legend”.
And there were so many comments there, I guess I forget that this is something that people need to do.
So I have two scenarios here where we want to change the chart legend, not just move the chart legend.
First one.
This chart is one of those clever charts where we have a chart series that we’ve changed the fill to blank to make the other columns appear like they’re floating.
And the only problem is my heading here of ‘Blank’ is appearing in the legend.
Alright.
So first click selects the entire legend.
Second click selects that one legend entry.
Now I can press the delete key and delete a legend entry that I don’t want.
But I think what people really, really wanted is where we have data in the worksheet that, for whatever reason, whoever created the data and we’re not allowed to change it, is just some insanely long title.
And so that’s appearing down here in the legend.
We want to be able to edit that legend entry.
Now, choice number one, of course, is to come here and change it.
But the assumption is that we can’t change it there.
So we’re going to select the chart, go to the Design tab.
Now this is in Excel 2007, 2010 or 2013.
And look for Select Data.
In Excel 2013, it’s on the right.
In Excel 2010, it’s on the left.
Alright?
But it still says ‘Select Data’.
Alright, so we get to the Select Data Source.
You see we have our items here.
You want to click on one of those and click Edit.
And, instead of the series name, just type the name.
‘Sales’.
And they’re actually going to wrap that in quotes with an equals sign in front of it.
You don’t put the quotes in.
And click OK.
And then we’ll do the same thing here.
Edit.
And click or type ‘Profit’.
Again, don’t put the equals sign or the quotes.
If you come back later, you’ll see that they did add the equals sign and the quotes, but you don’t have to type those the first time.
And click OK, click OK.
There we now have words that we want to appear in the legend, instead of words that are appearing in the spreadsheet.
There you have it.
And thanks to all those people who commented on 1408.
I guess I always would have just changed the data here, but apparently a lot of people have datasets where their manager, their crazy manager, wants things to print out one way and we want it a different way on the chart.
Well, hey.
I want to thank you for stopping by.
See you next time for another netcast of MrExcel.
Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1693 – Chart Legend Changes.
Hey. Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I’m Bill Jelen.
Well, this podcast is because of podcast 1408. There I talked about moving the chart legend and a lot of comments came in and said, “Well, all you did was move it.
You didn’t tell us how to change the chart legend”.
And there were so many comments there, I guess I forget that this is something that people need to do.
So I have two scenarios here where we want to change the chart legend, not just move the chart legend.
First one.
This chart is one of those clever charts where we have a chart series that we’ve changed the fill to blank to make the other columns appear like they’re floating.
And the only problem is my heading here of ‘Blank’ is appearing in the legend.
Alright.
So first click selects the entire legend.
Second click selects that one legend entry.
Now I can press the delete key and delete a legend entry that I don’t want.
But I think what people really, really wanted is where we have data in the worksheet that, for whatever reason, whoever created the data and we’re not allowed to change it, is just some insanely long title.
And so that’s appearing down here in the legend.
We want to be able to edit that legend entry.
Now, choice number one, of course, is to come here and change it.
But the assumption is that we can’t change it there.
So we’re going to select the chart, go to the Design tab.
Now this is in Excel 2007, 2010 or 2013.
And look for Select Data.
In Excel 2013, it’s on the right.
In Excel 2010, it’s on the left.
Alright?
But it still says ‘Select Data’.
Alright, so we get to the Select Data Source.
You see we have our items here.
You want to click on one of those and click Edit.
And, instead of the series name, just type the name.
‘Sales’.
And they’re actually going to wrap that in quotes with an equals sign in front of it.
You don’t put the quotes in.
And click OK.
And then we’ll do the same thing here.
Edit.
And click or type ‘Profit’.
Again, don’t put the equals sign or the quotes.
If you come back later, you’ll see that they did add the equals sign and the quotes, but you don’t have to type those the first time.
And click OK, click OK.
There we now have words that we want to appear in the legend, instead of words that are appearing in the spreadsheet.
There you have it.
And thanks to all those people who commented on 1408.
I guess I always would have just changed the data here, but apparently a lot of people have datasets where their manager, their crazy manager, wants things to print out one way and we want it a different way on the chart.
Well, hey.
I want to thank you for stopping by.
See you next time for another netcast of MrExcel.
