Using Graphics to Represent Data Series

Excel is great at creating all sorts of charts from your data. You can even customize the charts to your heart's content. One of the customizations you can make is to replace the regular bars (in a bar chart) with your own graphics. For instance, you might have a small graphic of a house that you want to use for the bars. This could be great if you wanted to used "stacked" houses to represent, for instance, housing starts in an area.

To use your own graphics in place of Excel's built-in bars, follow these steps if you re using Excel 2007 or Excel 2010:

1. Create your bar chart as usual.
2. Right click on one of the data series bars in the chart. Excel displays a Context menu.
3. Choose Format Data Series from the Context menu. Excel displays the Format Data Series dialog box.
4. Make sure the Fill option is selected at the left of the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Fill options of the Format Data Series dialog box.

5. Click Picture or Texture Fill. The options in the dialog box are expanded to reflect your choice.
6. Under Insert From, click File. Excel displays the Insert Picture dialog box, which is very similar to a standard Open dialog box.
7. Use the controls in the dialog box to locate and select the picture you want to use.
8. Click on Insert. Excel closes the Insert Picture dialog box and redisplays the Format Data Series dialog box.
9. Choose how you want the graphic to be applied to the bar. (I like to choose Stack And Scale With and then specify how to many units each picture represents.)
10. Click on OK in each open dialog box to close them.

If you are using Excel 2013 the steps are a bit different because Microsoft did away with the Format Data Series dialog box and replaced it with a task pane. Here are the steps:

1. Create your bar chart as usual.
2. Right click on one of the data series bars in the chart. Excel displays a Context menu.
3. Choose Format Data Series from the Context menu. Excel displays the Format Data Series task pane at the right side of the chart.
4. In the task pane click the Fill & Line icon; it looks like a spilling paint bucket.
5. Expand the Fill options by clicking the small triangle next to the Fill heading. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Fill options of the Format Data Series dialog box.

6. Click the Picture or Texture Fill radio button. The options in the dialog box are expanded to reflect your choice.
7. Under Insert From, click File. Excel displays the Insert Picture dialog box, which is very similar to a standard Open dialog box.
8. Use the controls in the dialog box to locate and select the picture you want to use.
9. Click on Insert. Excel closes the Insert Picture dialog box.
10. Choose how you want the graphic to be applied to the bar. (I like to choose Stack And Scale With and then specify how to many units each picture represents.)
11. Make other settings changes, as desired, so the graphic appears just as you want it.
12. Close the Format Data Series task pane.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6156) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Using Graphics to Represent Data Series.