First, select a few numbers on an Excel spreadsheet. Click Insert and then select a line, column or bar graph that will have gridlines. That will add a graph to the spreadsheet as below.
By default, the graph above has minor horizontal gridlines on it. You can add more gridlines to the chart by selecting Layout Gridlines. Then select either Primary Horizontal Gridlines or Vertical Horizontal G ridlinesas below. Select additional gridlines for the graph from the submenus. You can select either major or minor gridlines for both the vertical and horizontal axis. Select More Primary Vertical Gridlines Options or More Primary Horizontal Gridlines Options to open the window below. There click Line Color and Solid Line to add alternative colors to gridlines.
To do so, select the chart and navigate to Chart Tools Layout tab, in Gridlines pull-down menu, from Primary Horizontal Gridlines options, select a desired type which you wan to insert. Now from Gridlines options, select a Vertical Gridline type to insert gridlines at Y-axis. Below are some quick tips for how to use Excel to make your graphs convincing, easy-to-read, and beautiful. Note: I'm using Excel for Mac 2011. If you're using another version or operating system, implementing the following tips may look different. Excel Design Tricks for Sprucing Up Ugly Charts and Graphs in Microsoft Excel 1) Pick the right graph.
Select the Color option to choose colors from the palette. You can also add a glow effect to graph gridlines. Select Glow and Soft Edges to open the options below. Click the Presets box to choose a glow variation for the gridlines. Click the Color option to choose alternative glow colors. Shadow is another effect you can add to the gridlines.
Select Shadow and click Presets to choose an outer or inner shadow. Then adjust the shadows by dragging the Angle, Blur, Distance and Transparency bars left and right. So with those options you can add more gridlines to Excel graphs highlighting data points in them. In addition, the extra customization options will add glossy effects to your graphs.
How often do you use the gridlines on a chart to read the data? Not very often. And yet there they are, prominently, when you plot your data with most graphing applications. I've said this before, and I will say it again: plotting data in a graphing application like Excel should be your first step in the data visualization process, not your last!
Gridlines typically act as nothing more than clutter, unnecessarily competing for attention with your data. Don't let them. In the event that gridlines are important for being able to read the data you are presenting, push them to the background by making them a light shade of grey. In most cases, I'd argue that your audience isn't going to make use of the gridlines at all.
If this is the case, remove them completely. Let's see what this looks like in practice through the chart progression below. The first chart is what I get when I plot my data in Excel (using my mac). In the second chart, I stripped out a bit of clutter by eliminating the chart border and reducing the labels and tick marks on the x-axis. I also pushed the axes and gridlines to the background by making them grey and tied the title of the graph visually to the trend line by making the title the same shade of blue.
I justified the graph title and y-axis title at upper leftmost because in Western cultures most people read from left to right, top to bottom; this makes it so the audience encounters how to read the graph before they get to the actual data. This is looking better, right? The data stands out more than in the initial version, where there was no visual hierarchy to help direct our attention. In the final graph, I removed the gridlines altogether.
Note that the data stands out the most in this version, because it isn't competing visually with the gridlines for your attention. The lesson is this: if your audience isn't going to use gridlines to read the data, get rid of them! At the very least, push them to the background. At best, they aren't particularly helpful.
At worst, they distract from your data. Don't let your visuals fall victim to this unnecessary graphing application clutter! Data source: /.