Microsoft Graph is an applet of sorts — it is its own self-contained program, but it must be invoked within a larger application, like Word, Excel or PowerPoint. It’s a very easy tool for creating any kind of chart to visually display numbers and see summary figures at a glance; for instance, you can see a beautiful color representation of how badly your stocks are performing. 

Excel and PowerPoint in particular are natural environments to want to use Microsoft Graph. In fact, both of the programs contain a little graph button to assist you, right there in the standard toolbar at the top. In Excel, when you click this button it invokes the chart wizard. Now, something to think about in Excel – you probably have already typed the numbers in your spreadsheet, right? An easy way to create a chart in Excel is to have those numbers and headers selected before you invoke the Chart Wizard. This way, Excel knows exactly what you want charted. You can, however, select the range after the wizard has started too. In step 1 of the Chart Wizard, you select the chart type. There are many choices to select from, but the most common are bar, column and pie. The chart subtypes allow you to select a specific type of chart and whether or not it is 3-D (See Figure 1). You also have a button near the right-hand bottom of the dialog box, that reads ‘Press and Hold to View Sample’.  This will allow you to preview how your data will look before you finalize your chart type selection. For this button to work properly, you must have the data selected or the active cell in the data range. The next step of the wizard is the data range selection. 
 

If you have selected the area first, this should be what you selected. However, it’s a good idea to make sure that the selection is correct, especially if Excel auto-selects the range for you. Most of your chart types (except the pie) do not want summary figures, and the auto-select will usually pick those up with the rest of the data.

Step 3 of the wizard is for labeling the chart, and x and y axes. In addition, you can specify gridlines, legend placement, specific data labels and whether or not to display a data table. Data tables are a relatively new addition to Microsoft Graph (I want to say Office 97 and later) which display a little grid underneath the chart to show the actual figures. This is more important in Word and PowerPoint, when you don’t have a spreadsheet clearly displaying the data, and you’ve got a boss who needs to see the numbers as well.

Step 4 of the wizard is the location of the chart — as an object on the current sheet or as a new sheet. Unless the chart is meant to be free-standing in its own sheet, the default “as an object in the current sheet” should be selected. As you can see from Figure 2, I’ve got a beautiful graphical display of my financial misfortune.
 

On to PowerPoint. In PowerPoint, you also have a little chart button on the standard toolbar, but when you click it, instead of getting a wizard, it brings you into the Microsoft Graph environment and sets up a default chart for you to customize. There are a couple of ways to tell that you are in the Microsoft Graph program as opposed to regular PowerPoint (refer to Figure 3). First when you look at the toolbar at the top, the buttons are different. The second giveaway is the heavy border around the chart, and the presence of a floating datasheet window (usually — however, it can be turned off). From here, you simply modify the datasheet and put your own data into the cells.

Microsoft Graph runs similar in Word, although getting to it is a little trickier. Word doesn’t have a convenient little graph button, so to insert a graph into a Word document, you must choose Insert from the menu bar, and then Object. From here you see that you can insert all kinds of neat things into a document. You must scroll down to see Microsoft Graph Chart as a choice, and then when you select that, you are plunged in the Microsoft Graph environment, and you will have a default chart inserted with a floating datasheet window, much like in PowerPoint. 

Ok, so now that you’ve got a chart, how do you customize it? Well, that’s easy to do and it’s the same procedures in PowerPoint and Word, while Excel is slightly different. I’ll cover Excel first, since that’s the program you’re most likely to use a graph in anyway.

In Excel it’s not as obvious that you’re in the Microsoft Graph Environment. You will see a floating chart toolbar, but the dead giveaway is that the menu bar changes, and you see Chart as a menu bar choice. The floating toolbar is basically how you edit your chart in Excel. The first drop-down is your selection tool, and it allows you to select any specific piece of your chart. This is especially helpful in selecting axes or gridlines, as they can be hard to click on sometimes. 

The next button is the format button, which allows you to change whatever you have selected. You can format an individual series to be a certain color or pattern. You can format an axis to display dollar signs as a number format. You can also go back and add data labels if you so desire. All of these options will be displayed in the format dialog box when you click that button. And what choices are available depend entirely on what you selected. Another fast way to get to the format dialog box is to simply double-click on the item you want formatted. Be careful when you do this, though, it’s easy to select the wrong item and start formatting it. 

You can ensure you’ve got the correct item by looking at the selection drop-down in the toolbar. The third button is to change the chart type. You can click on the drop-down next to it to see all the different types. Now you may say, “Hey! I saw more subtypes in the wizard!” Yes that’s true, and if you want to change it to a different subtype, you can see them all displayed again, if you go to Chart on the menu bar, and select Chart Type. 

The next button on the toolbar allows you to turn the legend on or off. The Data table button does the same thing – it toggles displaying the data table below your chart. The next two buttons, By Row or By Column, change the way your data is displayed – whether you’re grouping by time or by series. The final two buttons are an easy way to change the angle of your headers. So through a series of clicks and button-pressing, I am able to fully customize my chart. The only thing I did there that was a little tricky is the custom data labels. To do this, simply click on the specific series, and then click again to select a single data point. From there, you can click on the format button, and choose data labels. Click category, and then to change it - click to select it, and then click again. It should now have its own fuzzy border. Now you can drag to select the text, and change it to anything you want. Take your time exploring the different format options available; there’s so much you can do with Microsoft Graph!

Excel has some neat features you can do with Graph that the other programs don’t. Adding a series is a good example of that. So let’s say you’ve got a couple more failing stocks to trend. You can simply type the data into your spreadsheet, then select both the headers and the data, and drag and drop it right into the chart! You must point at the border of the selection to move it, and then as you drag it over the chart, you should see a little plus sign, and that’s your signal to let it go. I love that feature!

Now Word and PowerPoint don’t have a floating chart toolbar to use, but you should notice that when you are in Microsoft Graph, you have a toolbar up at the top that’s similar to the floating one in Excel, especially if you drag the formatting toolbar under the standard, producing two sets of toolbars, so you can see all the buttons. The only major difference is that Word and PowerPoint include an Import File button, which is very convenient if you’ve already got an Excel spreadsheet completed. You simply select the file and the worksheet where the data is, and voila! you’ve got a wonderful chart in seconds, without having to manually enter the data in yourself. Another button that is different is the datasheet button, which toggles the datasheet (the spreadsheet where you enter the chart data in Word and PowerPoint) on and off. A minor addition is a set of buttons that will toggle gridlines on and off. 
 

So those are the basic ins and outs of Microsoft Graph. I know you will enjoy countless hours of charting pleasure, knowing how simple it is to create beautiful graphs in your Office projects!