Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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: Using Dynamic Chart Titles.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 26, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
There is a very cool way, apparently not well known, of adding 'active' or 'live' titles and other text to charts. In this way you can make a change in a worksheet and have that change reflected in a title in the chart. Follow these steps:
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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:
=MySheet!$A$1
That's it. Now, whenever the contents of A1 are changed Excel updates the information in the chart's title.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9701) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Using Dynamic Chart Titles.
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2020-08-10 18:41:03
Ronmio
To elaborate on Allen's tip and Dave's suggestion, since Excel only allows a simple "=" pointing to a single cell, you need to get creative in the referenced cell.
[sorry about the duplicates from trying to decipher how to insert an image]
My formulas (hidden behind the graph as Dave suggested) typically use concatenation. For example, by using a couple of helper cells (LargestDate whose formula is =Large(Date,1) and FifthLargestDate whose formula is =Large(Date,5), both also hidden behind the chart), this formula ...
="Daily Volumes (averaging "&AVERAGEIFS(Amount,Date,"<="&LargestDate,Date,">="&FifthLargestDate)&" over the most recent 5 days)"
will produce a dynamic Chart Title (or Axis Name, etc.) that reads like this,
Daily Volumes (averaging 22.6 over the most recent 5 days)
Like Dave, my charts will often contain many expressive chart elements.
Along the same lines, I will add a text box in the chart to create a more expressive "Legend". One big advantage of using a text box within a chart is that you can tailor it extensively (e.g., right clicking on some or all the text to add bullets, condense the line spacing using Paragraph formatting, etc.
(see Figure 1 below)
Figure 1.
2020-08-10 11:13:59
Dave
I often skip using Excel's chart and axis titles.
Instead, I use the cells under the chart for these titles.
Why? For more flexibility. I can format the cells any way I want, including coloring some font characters, adding subtitles and all that stuff.
I sometimes even do that for the category axis titles of bar charts. For horizontal bar charts, I use one row for each horizontal bar. For vertical bar charts, I use one column for each vertical bar. It sometimes takes a bit of fiddling, so I save this technique for only where it adds value.
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