Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. 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 Chart Sizes.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 15, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365
Megan has a monthly report that she creates in Excel. She has most of the report automated, except for one annoying problem that she must handle manually. The report includes four pie charts used to illustrate some values from the report. Each pie chart comes out a bit different in size, and the manual task is that Megan needs to make them all the same size. She wants each of them to be 5 centimeters square, and would love a way to remove the manual drudgery of formatting them each month.
The reason that each of the pie charts is a little bit different in size is because when you create a chart with the default settings, Excel decides it can adjust the chart size as it sees fit. This sizing can depend on several factors, such as available space, label sizes, number of data points, etc. One way to improve the chances that each chart will be the same size is to create your first chart and then use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy the chart the other three times. Each should be identical, and then you can adjust the data ranges reflected in the charts so that they display the desired ranges.
If it is not practical to copy and paste the charts (for instance, if the charts are created by macros), then you may be interested in just using a quick macro to adjust the size of all the charts in the worksheet. The following macro will step through each chart and adjust the Height and Width properties to 5 centimeters.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. 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:
Sub AdjChartSizes()
Dim cht As ChartObject
For Each cht In ActiveSheet.ChartObjects
cht.Chart.ChartArea.AutoScaleFont = False
cht.Height = Application.CentimetersToPoints(5)
cht.Width = Application.CentimetersToPoints(5)
Next cht
End Sub
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12235) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Specifying Chart Sizes.
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2023-04-16 16:29:01
Tomek
There is an easy way to make several charts the same size. Simply select all charts (by selecting the first then Ctrl+click to add the remaining ones). At this point a new tab "Shape Format" should become available, with the size group at the right. You can specify the size there, and it will apply to all selected items (charts).
Once done, you can update just the underlying data for other months. This should not affect the chart sizes.
If you have more or less data for a specific chart, select the chart. The source data for that chart will be highlighted in the sheet. You can drag the bottom handles of that highlight to extend or shrink the range of data included in the chart.
Voila!
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