Excel 2016 Charts and Graphs Guide

Overview: Excel 2016 Charts and Graphs

This concise, workshop-style guide teaches practical techniques for turning raw spreadsheets into clear, persuasive visuals using Excel 2016. It blends step-by-step procedures with design principles so you can pick the right chart type, apply focused formatting, and produce graphics that highlight insights for stakeholders. The emphasis is on clarity, accessibility, and efficient workflows that scale from single slides to reusable dashboard elements.

What you will learn

Follow a compact workflow that begins with clean source data and ends with presentation-ready visuals. You will learn how to match chart types to analytical goals and audiences, build and update charts quickly, and refine series, axes, labels, and legends so visuals emphasize the findings that matter. The guide also explains when to use intermediate options like trendlines, error bars, combination charts, and secondary axes—and when to avoid unnecessary complexity.

Key skills and techniques emphasized

• Hands-on mastery of Excel 2016 Chart Tools: Design and Format ribbons and the Format Pane for precise control.
• Choosing and adapting chart types to show comparisons, trends, composition, and outliers with clarity.
• Improving readability and accessibility through color, contrast, and typography choices that work for diverse and color-blind audiences.
• Decluttering visuals by managing gridlines, axes, legends, titles, and labels to direct attention to key data points.
• Preparing visuals for reuse: moving charts to chart sheets, exporting high-quality images, and formatting for slides or reports.

Practical exercises and learning approach

Exercises use real-world scenarios—compact dashboards, period comparisons, time-series trend analysis, and survey or expense summaries. Each activity includes a worked example you can recreate, then adapt with your own data. Short design reflections prompt judgment calls as well as technical practice, so you build both mechanics and decision-making skills.

Topics presented in context

Rather than listing isolated commands, the guide frames charting techniques within applied lessons so you learn when and why to use each feature. Lessons walk through creating charts from structured data, customizing series and axes, leveraging the Format Pane for consistent styling, and finalizing visuals for export. Decision-focused guidance clarifies when combo charts or a secondary axis clarify relationships—and when a simpler chart communicates better.

Who will benefit

Intended for intermediate Excel users who want focused training in data visualization. Analysts, managers, marketers, finance professionals, and anyone who prepares slides or client reports will find practical techniques to improve clarity and impact. The material is especially useful for people who regularly translate analysis into persuasive visuals for non-technical stakeholders.

How to use this guide effectively

Work alongside Excel: recreate the basic charts to confirm mechanics, then layer on formatting, annotations, and intermediate options with your own datasets. Treat exercises as checkpoints—attempt them, compare suggested approaches, and iterate. Before sharing visuals, revisit accessibility and styling notes to ensure consistent, audience-centered communication.

Why this guide helps

Beyond step-by-step instructions, the guide explains the rationale behind chart choices and formatting decisions so you can make informed trade-offs. That combination of how-to guidance and design reasoning builds both competence and judgment, enabling you to craft data-driven stories that inform decisions and persuade audiences.

Author perspective and educational context

According to Pandora Rose Cowart, iterative practice and clear examples accelerate confidence with Excel charting tools. The material is structured as a compact workshop that reinforces fundamentals while introducing intermediate techniques aimed at improving routine reports and dashboards.

Suggested uses

Use this guide as the basis for a short team workshop, a practical reference for client reporting, or a hands-on workbook for dashboard design. Techniques translate directly to routine reporting and exploratory analysis so teams can produce charts that communicate insights with clarity and professionalism.