Your friendly Business Intelligence guy is not the best source for learning about style, but he can tell you about Chart Styles in Excel Video 456. Once you’ve built a chart, here’s how to use the new Excel 2013 Chart Styles button to add a bunch of different style options. It’s easy to preview Excel’s choices and then choose or modify the style you like. Note that Excel’s style suggestions are specific to your chart. A chart with one data series may have different choices than a chart with multiple data series. A column chart will have different style options than a line chart will. Click on the style you like and most of your work may already be done at that point.
I have two thoughts about Chart Styles. First, browsing Chart Styles is a great way to see examples of what Excel can do. If you see something you like or something you don’t know how to do, choose that style and see how Excel built the chart. Second, be careful with Chart Styles. It’s easy to add too much “stuff” to the chart and overwhelm the user and the message you’re trying to present.
