Picturesque charts

So far, in several “recipes,” you can find out how to create and beautify the charts. This one will be about how to combine charts and images. First, in the case of a simple column column, you will see how to replace the columns with the image. Then we will add the picture as a background. Although it will not be about new features here, using some tricks will help you to make your reports more beautiful.

Let’s start by making a simple chart! I’m not creative at the moment, I’m going to get A1: A4 values 10,15,20 and 25 and use them to create a Column Chart. Let these values represent some “earned money” (I will even make the title of the graph in Serbian to match the displayed data).

Then we need some picture with which we will replace the columns. If you click on the Insert ribbon there you will find the Online Pictures option. After it launches, a dialog box opens in which you need to enter the search term. Since we show chart “about money”, should enter the word “Coins”. After we launch the search, Bing will offer us a number of images that we can download from the Internet. By clicking the Insert button, the selected image will be added to the worksheet.

Now you just need to click on the image, so copy it to Clipboard (CTRL + C). Then select the data series, click on one of the columns, and then press the CTRL + V key combination. Instead of traditional columns, coins now appear!

Further we need to click on the chart with the right mouse button and choose the Format Chart Area option. A panel on the right shows a group of options for formatting the background of the chart. By clicking on Picture or Texture Fill, a dialog box will open where we cah choose an image that we want to set as the background of the chart.

The chart needs to be slightly refined so that we can see “earned money” in the most imaginative way.