Excel Tip: Size Up Your Charts

Have you ever created two or more charts on a worksheet? If you have your probably know how tricky it can be to align them and make them all the same size. Having multiple charts on a report can confuse the reader and may emphize one chart over the other. This is not good, unless of course you intend to do this.

Here's the easy way to balance your charts out. Click on the first chart to select it, then hold down the Ctrl key and click on the other charts that you want to align with each other. When all the charts you want to align are selected, right-click on any one of them and choose Size and Properties. This opens the Format Shape dialog, and the measurements that you enter in the dialogue will be applied to all the selected charts. After making the charts the same size, go to the Drawing Tools tab and click on Format. Use the Align dropdown menu on the ribbon to align the selected charts and to distribute them evenly either horizontally or vertically.