You have registered for this course because you want to take your Excel charting skills beyond the intermediate level. You want techniques that you can apply to the real-world charts that you create as a business professional to present results or analysis to others in presentations or reports. This course will help you create clear charts that are easy to update and re-use, saving you time in the future.

If you haven’t done so already, review the lessons in the mini-course on Presentation-Ready Excel Charts. It provides the foundations of structuring your worksheet and creating charts that are easy to update and re-use.

This core of this course is arranged into modules based on four areas of techniques:

Advanced labelling that allows you to add explanatory text as part of the chart instead of using shapes or text boxes. This allows updates to the data table to drive automatic updates of all elements of the chart.

Invisible elements. Not all data series or chart elements need to be visible. By using invisible elements you will be able to control the elements that you need the viewer to focus on.

Combination/Multiple charts allows you to create charts that go beyond the typical one or two data series of the same chart type. These charts make your message clearer to the viewer while staying driven by the data table and avoiding manually added shapes and text boxes.

Multiple data series allow you to format each data series separately based on the meaning of that set of values. When the data updates, these multiple series can help the chart automatically update based on formulas that determine which data series the values should be organized into.

All of the techniques are explained and demonstrated using short screen capture videos where you watch me demonstrate the technique in Excel and hear me explain what I am doing. You can pause the video at any time and practice what you have just watched in Excel. Because you have access to the course for one year, you can come back and watch the videos again to refresh your memory of a certain technique. In order to demonstrate one technique it sometimes involves demonstrating another technique as well. That’s why some of the videos appear in multiple areas. This will help you see the different techniques from different perspectives when proceeding through the course.

There are templates for specific visuals that you can download as part of two of the techniques that are demonstrated. My lawyer says I have to tell you that the files are offered as is with no guarantee. I’ve included these downloads so you can get started quickly with those visuals.

After the techniques have been demonstrated there is a module with videos where you will see me use a number of the techniques to create real-world visuals in Excel. Some of the videos are from live sessions I have done and some videos I recorded to show a specific visual or use of a visual in a real-world situation. These videos are included so that you can see how the individual techniques can come together to create the charts you will use in your presentations.

There is also a module that contains videos on how you can re-use Excel charts to create similar charts with different data and the different options for using Excel charts in PowerPoint. This allows you to extend the benefits of this course to future charts and presentations.

By the end of the course you will have a new set of skills for creating clear Excel charts that are easy to update, re-use, and include in presentations.