Today's short post focuses on an Excel tip that I find myself using frequently and I get asked about a ton. While I focus on Excel here, I imagine the same could apply when working in any spreadsheet application. For additional formatting flexibility, put some graph elements in the cells directly.

This is probably easiest to illustrate through an example. Below is a visual from storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals. It's highlighted in Chapter 6 (pg. 161), which focuses on what I consider to be model examples of data visualization. I regularly get questions about how this graph was created.

Source: Knaflic, Cole. Storytelling With Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals, Wiley, © 2015. (Original figure had data labels on the stacked bars; I've omitted those here for simplicity.) — Source: Knaflic, Cole. *Storytelling With Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals*, Wiley, © 2015. (Original figure had data labels on the stacked bars; I've omitted those here for simplicity.)

There are two common questions posed about this visual:

How did you format some of the y-axis labels differently from the rest?
How did you include the TOTAL % in the graph?

The trick in both of these cases is the same: these elements aren't part of the graph directly, rather they are in individual cells in Excel. In this particular graph, the only things directly in the graph element are the stacked bars. Everything else is done in cells. I do this for additional formatting flexibility. In Excel, you can only apply a single format to axis labels on a given axis. You also have to get creative (and it can sometimes be limiting) if you want to add additional numbers or labels to the visual that aren't part of the data you're visualizing directly. Using the cells allows me to break free from both of these constraints.

In case it's easier to see what I'm talking about, below is what the visual looks like if I show the gridlines in Excel (in the preceding view, all of my cells were filled with white).

When approaching this way, you do have to take care to ensure that everything is lined up correctly. This means precisely aligning the graph with the cells and making both cell and graph heights line up (otherwise your bars won't correctly align with the words and numbers). Also, be aware that if you shuffle your data around, you'll need to adjust the elements you've put into the cells directly. Changing the order of your data would change the graph in this case, but not the PRIORITY or TOTAL %, which would have to be done manually (unless you set up so it's pointing to the data you reshuffle). Both of these things lead me to express a word of caution: when I break the pieces apart like this, it's easier to introduce issues and have things not line up: both from a visual standpoint as well for data and labels to get out of sync. Because of this, the tradeoffs may not be worth it if you're trying to automate or it's a repeated process that you don't want to have to adjust each time. But so long as you're careful and pay attention to detail, when you need the additional formatting flexibility, consider putting some elements into cells directly.

If it's of interest, you can download my Excel workbook.

Are there other graphs from storytelling with data that you have questions about or would like a behind-the-scenes peek? Or other tricks you employ when graphing data that you'd like to share? Leave a comment!