Charts – Quick Technique
If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a chart can be worth a thousand numbers. Since a column chart is the most common, Excel makes it really easy to produce a column chart.
Open or create your data table.
With the active cell somewhere in the data table, press F11.
Yes, it’s that easy. Excel produces a column chart based on your data, placing the chart on its own worksheet.
Of course, if you typically use other chart types, such as a line or bar chart, you can change the default type (the type created by this shortcut). For example, to set a bar chart as the default chart:
Open or create your data table.
From the Insert ribbon click the small button at the lower right corner of the chart group to see a list of all charts.
Choose the All Charts tab and choose Bar from the categories at left.
From the chart types at the top of the bar chart listing, right click the bar chart type you want to make the default and choose Set as Default Chart.
Complete your chart.
From this point on, pressing F11 will create a bar chart instead of a column chart.