Tip #13: 3 important chart customizations to make them more readable

Charts are great tools for representing data. Visualizing can give you a new perspective, and help you unlock new insights from your data. Here are three customization options that can enhance your charts for maximum impact.

Labels: Cover all the basics

Pick the right chart type for your data. Not all charts have to be pies and bars.
Use explanatory chart and series labels.
Create a legend for the chart.

Applying labels, and playing around with their formatting and positioning, can make it easier for an audience to understand what the chart is all about—before even looking at the data.

Axes: Keeping things in line

Most charts are bound by the vertical and horizontal axes. Making them self-explanatory helps you build an easy-to-understand chart. With Zoho Sheet, you can specify the starting point of the vertical axis, the minimum and maximum values the axis will run through, the data interval, scale factor, and number formats.

Data: Decide the "what" and "how"

When there's too much data, charts cannot function as concise visual tools. It's always best to keep the data simple, sorted, and aggregated. You can depict just a selected portion of the data, either from the top or the bottom. Zoho Sheet helps you sort chart series from either higher to lower or lower to higher, and aggregate to keep your chart clutter free.

Note: Trend lines and threshold lines can serve as simple, but effective, ways of conveying ancillary information. If you can, try to incorporate them in your charts!

These customizations will ensure that your charts are not only aesthetically pleasing, but highly effective as well. Here's a checklist that you can save for future references.

Share with us the other customization options you use to make charts visually appealing and effective in the comments. Follow our Twitter and LinkedIn spaces for product updates and other spreadsheet related information. Thanks for reading!

New to Zoho CRM Plus?

Deliver unforgettable customer experiences

ACCESS ZOHO CRM PLUS

New to Zoho CRM Plus?

Deliver unforgettable customer experiences

ACCESS ZOHO CRM PLUS

New to Zoho Marketing Plus?

Everything you need to run your marketing

ACCESS ZOHO MARKETING PLUS

New to Zoho Marketing Plus?

Everything you need to run your marketing

ACCESS ZOHO MARKETING PLUS

Tout forum

France ZUGs

Zoho SalesIQ Resources

Topic Participants
Selva Sundaram M

Sticky Posts
Tip #16: Ask Zia your data-related questions and get powerful insights
Zoho Sheet provides a variety of tools and functionalities to help you analyze your data from end to end. But what if you could analyze all your data sets with a single AI-powered tool? Meet Zia, our smart virtual assistant who will answer all your data-related
Tip #17: Easily share spreadsheets with non-Zoho account users
With efficient, collaboration-friendly options, Zoho Sheet is a popular choice among users. Sheet's external share links help you collaborate more effectively by sharing your spreadsheets with anyone outside your organization, including users who do not
Tip #7: Four things you didn't know you can do with Conditional Formatting
Conditional formatting helps you highlight and visualize data in your spreadsheet based on provided rules. Zoho Sheet offers three types of conditional formatting: Classic, Color Scales, and Icon Sets. If you're already familiar with how Conditional Formatting works, here are some bonus tips for Classic formats: Customize rules with formulas Zoho Sheet allows you to create personalized rules based on formulas. For example, in a task list you can use customized formulas to highlight tasks which are
Tip #15: Stop guessing and start estimating with Zoho Sheet's Goal Seek
Goal Seek is an ideal spreadsheet tool for devising estimates, as it helps you retrieve your desired output value when the input values are not known. In other words, Goal Seek does back-solving to find input values once you've provided an output value.
Tip #10: 3 helpful ways to use data validation in your spreadsheet
Data validation in spreadsheets makes data entry processes more efficient, while helping reduce inconsistencies and errors in your data sets. In this article, we'll look at three ways you can use data validations to create useful dropdown lists in your