Excel Video 131 contrasts two ways to get your charts onto a dashboard. The Move Chart button does just that, it moves your chart either onto a separate chart page or as an object in a spreadsheet. When you move a chart, the chart is still attached to your data. As your data changes, the chart will change, but the chart is on your dashboard instead of next to your data. Separate tabs can make the chart harder to update as you click back and forth between the tabs on your spreadsheet. Having the chart on your dashboard does allow you to format the chart from the dashboard tab without having to click back to your data tab to make changes.
Watch how to add the camera tool to your quick access toolbar. The camera tool takes a picture of your chart. Since the data is a picture, you can crop the chart or use all of Excel’s picture functions to format the chart. The camera tool also links to live data, so as your data changes, the picture will as well. The tradeoff here is that if you want to make changes to the chart, you have to go back to the chart tab to do it.
There are times when each of these two approaches will be helpful in constructing dashboards. Stay tuned. In the next Excel Video I’ll give you a few more suggestions for getting your charts on your dashboard.
