Excel allows you to create charts and diagrams from different data sets, even those that contain hidden or empty cells. However, sometimes you may see unexpected results. For example, if there are hidden cells in the chart data, by default, Excel ignores such data and doesn't display the corresponding chart elements. You can easily force Excel to handle hidden data.

Usually, horizontal lines are added to a chart to highlight a target, threshold, limits, base, average, or benchmark. These lines, for example, can help control if a process is behaving differently than usual. Excel allows you to add a vertical line to an existing chart in several different ways, e.g., by calculating line values for a scatter, line, or column chart, but using error bars is the easiest way to add a vertical line to a chart:

If you need an informative and memorable chart, it might be useful to add a chart title that contains the data that changes, for example, depending on volume:

When analyzing or presenting data in comparison or competitive charts, it is useful to see the points scored or results achieved and the remaining points to complete the Goal. For example, you can easily create a simple competition chart with residual data:

Often actualizing the graph data takes a long time. Suppose you need to present frequently changing, updating, or extending data. In that case, it's easier to create automatically updated charts, such as automatically extended charts, charts with dynamically updated chart titles, or labels that depend on the value of the cells:

When you create a thermometer chart, you are not limited to a single color bar. Instead, you can specify different colors for different value intervals. This tip shows you how to create a rainbow thermometer chart. E.g., working on some goal, you can specify risk zones for it: red zone - the risk of failure is high, yellow zone - success/fail is unknown, green zone - success is not far enough.

Data visualization is a powerful cognitive tool that enables you to attract more attention to your statements. E.g., you can direct your organization's attention to insufficiently developed goals and praise them for successfully performed goals. This tip shows you how to update thermometer char colors automatically according to the current process status.

There are many ways to emphasize differences between data on the chart. You can add a threshold value using horizontal or vertical lines, highlight differences with a waterfall, individual values, and so on. Also, you can create a column chart in which the color of each column depends on the value displayed.

If you have a line chart with two different data series, you might want to compare those series at each point along the horizontal axis. There are two different options available in two locations, along with the Chart Design tab of the ribbon:

If you often need to adjust your data ranges so that your charts plot an updated data range, you may be interested in a trick that forces Excel to update the chart's data range whenever you add new data to your spreadsheet.