Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Specifying the Size of Chart Objects.

Specifying the Size of Chart Objects

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 13, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021


When you create a Excel chart, as an object to be placed in a worksheet, the chart object is automatically sized to some pre-determined size that Excel selects. You may not want the chart object to be whatever size Excel determines; you may want your chart objects to always be a standard size, so they always appear the same relative to your worksheets.

There is no way to specify a chart object size as you are creating the chart. You can, however, resize the chart object after it is created, just as you can resize other graphic elements of your worksheet. You could write a macro to create the object at a particular size, but doing so would remove much of the flexibility that is inherent in Excel's chart-creation tools. For instance, when you specify the size of the chart object being created, you also have to specify other characteristics, such as chart type. It is easier to pick and choose such characteristics through the tools on the ribbon than it is to do so in a macro.

You can, however, easily create a macro that will resize an existing chart object. The key commands of such a macro would be changing the Width and Height properties for the chart object. In VBA, these properties are specified in points. Thus, if you wanted to resize the chart object so it was 4 inches high, you would set the Height property to 288, which is the number of points in 4 inches (4 * 72).

The following macro gives an example of one way to step through all the chart objects on a worksheet and make them the same size. This particular macro sets the width of each chart object to 4 inches, and the height to 3 inches.

Sub ResizeCharts()
    For j = 1 To ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count
        If ActiveSheet.Shapes(j).Type = msoChart Then
            ActiveSheet.Shapes(j).Width = 4 * 72
            ActiveSheet.Shapes(j).Height = 3 * 72
        End If
    Next j
End Sub

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (8526) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Specifying the Size of Chart Objects.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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