Problem: You’ve been working in a model for hours and are bleary-eyed. You want to quickly view the pattern created by a series of values to do a visual sanity check on all of the modeling you have been doing.
REFM 60-Second Skills Solution: Select the entire data series you wish to graph by mouse-clicking on the first data point, then pressing down the Shift key, and while keeping the Shift key held down, pressing either the down arrow or the right arrow until the entire range you wish to graph is highlighted, and then release both the Shift key and the arrow key. Then hit the F11 key. A new tab will automatically appear, with a bar graph of the data series automatically generated.
You can then change the chart type by clicking on the Design tab on the ribbon, and then the Change Chart Type icon on the left of the Design ribbon.
Now you can inspect your data series from 30,000 feet to make sure that what you’ve been modeling is coming out as you intended it to.
Another great insight, Bruce. I love these little known excel tips and tricks. Keep them coming and maybe one day you could create a ‘Excel Tips and Tricks’ e-book.
Awesome tip. Thanks!
The F11 trick didn’t work for me in Mac’s current version of Excel. While I realize the large majority of your readers use Microsoft/PCs, could you add the Mac version to your tips? Thanks.