How to Change Chart Layout in Excel

You created a chart in Excel, but it doesn't quite communicate the story you want it to. Maybe the legend is in an awkward spot, the data points are hard to read, or it's missing a crucial title. Fine-tuning these elements is the key to turning a basic chart into a clear, professional visual. This article will walk you through everything from quick, one-click layout changes to granular, manual customizations so you can make your Excel charts look exactly how you want.

The Easiest Fix: Using Quick Layouts

Excel has a set of pre-designed layouts that instantly rearrange your chart’s core components like the title, legend, data labels, and axes. This is the fastest way to test different looks and is often the best place to start your formatting.

Here’s how to use them:

Select your chart: Click anywhere on your chart to select it. You'll know it's selected when a border appears around it and two new tabs, Chart Design and Format, appear in the Ribbon at the top of your screen.
Navigate to the Chart Design tab: Click on the Chart Design tab.
Find Quick Layouts: On the far left of the Chart Design ribbon, you’ll see a button labeled “Quick Layout.”
Choose a layout: Click this button to open a gallery of different layouts. As you hover your mouse over each option, your chart on the spreadsheet will show a live preview of what it will look like.

Each numbered layout offers a different combination of elements. For example:

Layout 1 might be a clean design with just the axes and gridlines.
Layout 2 might include a legend at the top and data labels on your bars or lines.
Layout 9 might place the legend on the right and add titles for both the horizontal and vertical axes.
Layout 5 could even add a data table beneath the chart, showing the exact numbers being visualized.

Click the layout you like best to apply it. This single click might get your chart 90% of the way to being perfect. From there, you can make small manual adjustments to get it just right.

For More Control: Add and Remove Chart Elements Manually

While Quick Layouts are convenient, you often need more precise control over individual components. Excel makes it easy to add, remove, or reposition every element a la carte. You can do this using the “Add Chart Element” menu or a handy shortcut button.

First, select your chart. In newer versions of Excel, you'll see a green plus sign (“+”) icon appear on the top-right side. Clicking this opens a menu with checkboxes for every major chart element. The other method is to navigate to the Chart Design tab and click the Add Chart Element button on the top left. Both routes lead to the same options.

Chart Title

A good chart almost always needs a good title. If your chart doesn't have one, or you want to move it:

How to add/move: Go to Add Chart Element > Chart Title and choose “Above Chart” (places it neatly above the plot area) or “Centered Overlay” (places it inside the chart area, which can sometimes save space but may obscure data).
How to remove: Simply uncheck the “Chart Title” box in the “+” menu or select “None” from the menu options.
How to edit: To edit the text, just click on the title box in your chart and start typing.

Data Labels

Data labels display the exact value of each bar, column, line point, or pie slice directly on the chart. This makes your chart much easier to read, as viewers don't have to trace lines back to the Y-axis to estimate a value.

How to add/move: Go to Add Chart Element > Data Labels. You'll see several position options depending on your chart type, such as “Center,” “Inside End,” “Outside End,” or even “Data Callout,” which puts the values in speech bubbles. “Outside End” is usually the cleanest choice for bar and column charts.
How to customize: After adding data labels, you can click on any label, then go to the Format Data Labels settings for more options like showing category names instead of values, or changing font properties.

Legend

The legend explains what each of the colors or patterns in your chart represents, which is essential for any chart with more than one data series.

How to add/move: Go to Add Chart Element > Legend and choose a position: “Top,” “Bottom,” “Left,” or “Right.” The best position usually depends on your chart’s dimensions. A tall chart often looks best with a legend on the right, while a wide chart might look better with one at the top or bottom.

Axes and Axis Titles

Your axes (the horizontal X-axis and vertical Y-axis) form the foundation of your chart. Sometimes you need to add descriptive titles to clarify what they represent (e.g., “Monthly Revenue” or “Number of Units Sold”).

How to add/move titles: Select Add Chart Element > Axis Titles and choose “Primary Horizontal” or “Primary Vertical.” A placeholder text box will appear, which you can edit just like the chart title.
How to remove axes: In some cases, like with a pie chart or a simple chart with very obvious data labels, you might not even need the axes. Under the "Axes" option, you can uncheck the boxes for “Primary Horizontal” or “Primary Vertical” to hide them completely.

Gridlines

Gridlines are the faint lines running across the plot area that help the eye connect data points to the axis values.

How to add/remove: Go to Add Chart Element > Gridlines. You can independently control the vertical and horizontal gridlines. You also have the option to add “Primary Major” gridlines (the standard, widely spaced lines) and “Primary Minor” gridlines (additional lines in between the major ones for more detail).
Tip: Be careful with gridlines. Too many can make a chart look cluttered. Major horizontal gridlines are usually sufficient. Minor gridlines are rarely necessary and can often be visual noise.

Getting Granular: The Format Pane

For the ultimate level of control, there’s the Format Pane. This is a sidebar that gives you detailed options for every single part of your chart, from the plot area background to the number formatting of your axis.

The easiest way to open it is to double-click on any chart element you want to modify. For example:

Double-click a Data Series (one of the bars or a line in your chart) to open the Format Data Series pane. Here you can adjust things like the gap width between columns in a bar chart, add a shadow effect, or change the fill color and border style.
Double-click the Vertical Axis to open the Format Axis pane. This is where you can manually set the minimum and maximum values (bounds), change the unit intervals, display units in thousands or millions, or format the numbers as currency, percentages, or dates.
Double-click the Chart Area (the white space around your chart) to open the Format Chart Area pane, where you can add a border, change the background color, and more.

Working in the Format Pane allows you to refine every aspect of your layout until it's perfect, ensuring that your chart is not just accurate but also aesthetically pleasing and easy to interpret.

Work Smarter: Save Your Layout as a Chart Template

If you regularly create charts that need the same brand-specific colors, fonts, and layout, creating a chart template can save you an incredible amount of time. Instead of recreating your custom layout from scratch every time, you can apply it with just a few clicks.

Here’s how to do it:

Format your chart perfectly: Use all the tools above to get one chart looking exactly the way you want it. Set up your custom colors, font sizes, data label positions, legend placement - everything.
Save it as a template: Right-click on the fully customized chart and select Save as Template...
Name your template: A dialog box will pop up. Give your template a memorable name, like “Monthly Marketing Report - Bar Chart” or “Sales KPI Template,” and click Save. Excel will save it as a .crtx file in its default chart template folder.

Now, the next time you need to create a chart with that style:

Select your source data.
Go to the Insert tab and click on Recommended Charts.
In the dialog box that appears, click the All Charts tab.
On the left-hand menu, click on the top option: Templates.
Your saved chart templates will appear. Click on the one you want and hit OK.

Your new chart will be created using all of the custom layout and formatting rules you saved, instantly matching your brand standards without any of the repetitive manual work.

Final Thoughts

Customizing your chart layout in Excel is a powerful way to make your data more digestible and impactful. Whether you use the lightning-fast Quick Layouts for an instant refresh or dive into the Format Pane for detailed control, a well-structured chart helps your audience understand the story behind the numbers without any friction.

Mastering these formatting options can feel rewarding, but it's often just another time-consuming, manual task when you're busy running marketing campaigns or managing a sales team. While a perfectly formatted Excel chart is great for a static report, what if you need to visualize your performance in real time? Instead of spending hours pulling data and tweaking layouts, we built Graphed to automate the whole process. Just connect your marketing and sales tools (like Google Analytics, Shopify, HubSpot, or Facebook Ads), and you can use simple natural language to build live, self-updating dashboards in seconds.