For most Mac users, I would recommend using iWork for your “office” tools. With Number’s ’08, making a graph is just a matter of clicking a button. On the other hand, with Microsoft Excel, there is a little more clicking involved, making it a bit less user-friendly. Since most jobs these days require that you use Microsoft Office, I figured this would help out many individuals.
- First open up Microsoft Excel.
- Type in the “X-Axis” values into the first column.
- In the second column, type in the “Y-Axis” values. Feel free to use more columns depending on your data.
- Once you’ve finished that up, select all of your “Y-Axis” values.
- From the menubar, choose Insert > Chart…
- You’ll be prompted with the “Chart Type” window. Choose a type that suits your needs.
- After clicking the “Next” button, you should see a preview of your graph showing the data ranges.
- After confirming the data ranges, click on the “Series” tab at the top of the window.
- To name the data, click on “Series1” (or any “Series#”) and type in the title you want in the “Name:” field.
- When you’ve named all of your series, click on the triangle icon in the “Category (x) axis labels:” field towards the bottom of the window.
- Select all of your “X-Axis” values from your sheet. In the small pop-up for the X-Axis values, click on the upside down triangle icon to save those values.
- Click the “Next” button when the “Series” window reappears.
- In the “Titles” section, enter the main title for the graph and for the X and Y-Axis.
- You do not usually need to change the settings in the other tabs (i.e. Axes, Gridlines ,etc.), but feel free to.
- After clicking the “Next” button, the “Chart Location” window appears.
- Check off “As object in” or “As new sheet” depending on where you want the graph to be inserted.
- After clicking “Finish”, select your graph and go to File > Print… from the menubar.
