Excel Video 82 is a cool way to add some color to your chart. The area of the chart where the data is actually plotted is called the Plot Area. You can change the background of the Plot Area from the default white to a solid color, a gradient fill, a texture, or any picture you’d like, from a file, from the clipboard, or from clip art. If things get too colorful, you can always play with the Transparency slider to fade the Plot Area fill into the background.
You can do a lot of fun things with the Plot Area. If the chart is tracking progress toward a big goal, show a picture of the goal (here’s hoping it’s a beach!) in the background of the Plot Area. You can put your company logo back there, an artist’s rendering of the building construction you’re charting, or any of a number of things to make your charts much more interesting.
You’ve made it through the basics. Now it’s time to put some things together to build really powerful charts. Stay tuned. Next I’ll demonstrate how to add more data to a chart. There are several manual ways to add or change chart data. The really cool thing to do is to have Excel update the chart for you automatically. We’ll start on that next.
