How to Hide Chart Title in Excel

A good chart tells a story, but sometimes its title gets in the way. Whether you're creating a minimalist dashboard, want to save precious screen space, or simply prefer to add a title in a different text box, hiding the default chart title in Excel is a quick and simple task. This article will walk you through several easy methods for removing chart titles, plus a few advanced tips for making them dynamic instead of just deleting them.

Why Would You Want to Hide a Chart Title?

While a title is often essential for context, there are several solid reasons you might decide to tuck it away. Understanding the "why" can help you build cleaner and more effective reports.

Compact Dashboard Design: On a dashboard packed with visualizations, space is at a premium. Hiding redundant titles can make everything feel less cluttered and allow more room for an important KPI or chart.
Avoiding Redundancy: If a section in your report is already titled "Q3 Sales Performance by Region," your chart below it doesn't also need the title "Q3 Sales by Region." The surrounding text already provides the necessary context.
Replacing it with a Custom Title: You might want more formatting control than Excel’s chart title offers. By hiding the default title, you can add your own custom text box, shape, or use a cell as a more flexible, aesthetically pleasing substitute.
Creating "Small Multiples": When you have a grid of small, similar charts (e.g., sales trends for 12 different products), a title on each one would create overwhelming visual noise. It's better to have one overarching title for the whole grid.

Method 1: The Quickest and Easiest Way - Using Chart Elements

Modern versions of Excel (2013 and newer) make toggling chart elements incredibly easy with a set of on-chart buttons. This is the fastest method and the one you'll likely use most often.

Step 1: Select Your Chart

First, click anywhere on your chart to select it. When you do, you'll notice a few buttons appear near the top-right corner of the chart's border.

Step 2: Open the Chart Elements Menu

Click on the button with the green plus icon (+). This is the Chart Elements shortcut, which opens a checklist of every component you can add or remove from your chart, like axis titles, data labels, and, of course, the chart title.

Example: Let's say you have a bar chart showing website traffic from different social media platforms. When you click the chart, you'll see the green plus icon ready for your command.

Step 3: Uncheck 'Chart Title'

In the Chart Elements list, you'll see a checkbox next to "Chart Title." Simply uncheck this box. As soon as you do, the title will disappear from your chart instantly. That's it! To bring it back, just repeat the steps and re-check the box.

Method 2: Using the 'Add Chart Element' Ribbon Menu

If you prefer using the ribbon at the top of the screen or are working with a slightly older version of Excel, this method achieves the exact same thing.

Step 1: Select Your Chart

Just as before, click on the chart you want to edit.

Step 2: Navigate to the Chart Design Tab

When you select a chart, two contextual tabs appear in the ribbon: Chart Design and Format. Click on the Chart Design tab.

Step 3: Choose 'Add Chart Element'

On the far left of the Chart Design ribbon, you'll find the Add Chart Element button. Click this to see a dropdown menu of features you can customize.

Step 4: Select 'None'

Hover your mouse over Chart Title in the dropdown menu. A secondary menu will appear with options like 'Above Chart,' 'Centered Overlay,' and 'None.' Select None to hide the title.

This path offers a bit more granular control, but for simply hiding the title, unchecking the box (Method 1) is much faster.

Method 3: The Manual Deletion (Select and Delete)

Sometimes the most intuitive action is the right one. This method feels just like deleting text or a shape anywhere else on your spreadsheet.

Step 1: Click Directly on the Chart Title

Instead of clicking on the chart's background or plot area, click specifically on the text box that contains the chart title. You'll know you've selected it correctly when you see a border appear ONLY around the title itself.

Step 2: Press the Delete Key

With the title's text box selected, press the Delete key on your keyboard. Poof! The title is gone. Like the other methods, this is non-destructive. If you change your mind, you can add the title back using the Chart Elements (+) menu or the ribbon.

What If I Just Want the Title to be Blank?

In some rare design cases, you might want to keep the space reserved for a title (to maintain layout consistency across several charts) but remove the text itself. Deleting the text will cause Excel to remove the title element entirely. The trick is to replace the text with a space.

Step 1: Double-click the chart title to place your cursor inside the text box.
Step 2: Select all the text.
Step 3: Hit the spacebar once, then click outside the chart.

Your chart will now have a blank title, which preserves the vertical spacing but displays no text. This can be useful for perfect alignment in a static report, though it's generally better just to remove the title outright.

An Advanced Alternative: The Dynamic Chart Title

Before you hide that title, ask yourself: is the problem that it exists, or that it's boring and static? A much more powerful approach is to link your chart title to a cell, making it dynamic and responsive to your data.

Imagine a dashboard with a dropdown menu or slicer to select different regions or months. With a dynamic title, your chart can instantly update from "January Sales" to "February Sales" without any manual work. It provides immediate, clear context to whoever is viewing the report.

How to Create a Dynamic Chart Title

Prepare Your Title in a Cell: First, dedicate a cell to be your title source. You can use formulas to combine text and cell references. For example, if cell A1 has a dropdown list of months, you could put this formula in cell B1: "Sales Report for " & A1.
Click the Chart Title Element: Make sure your chart title is visible. Single-click the chart title text box so it's selected. Be careful not to double-click, as that will put your cursor inside the box for text editing.
Link to the Cell via the Formula Bar: With the title box selected, move your cursor to the Excel Formula Bar above the worksheet.
Type = and Select the Cell: In the Formula Bar, type an equals sign (=) and then use your mouse to click on the cell containing your title text (e.g., B1 from our example).
Press Enter: The link will be established, and the text from your chosen cell will automatically appear as the chart's new heading. Now, whenever the data in cell A1 changes, the title in B1 will update too.

Automating Title Removal with VBA (For Power Users)

If you're creating dozens of charts as part of an automated process, turning titles on or off by hand isn't efficient. A simple line of VBA code can handle it instantly.

How to Hide a Chart Title with a Macro

Press Alt + F11 to open the VBA Editor.
Go to Insert > Module to create a new module.
Paste the following simple code:

To use this, simply select any chart on your sheet and run the macro. The ActiveChart.HasTitle = False command quickly sets the title to be invisible. To turn it back on, you can create another macro with the property set to True.

Final Thoughts

From a simple uncheck on the Chart Elements menu to a quick keyboard press or even a bit of VBA, there are many ways to hide a chart title in Excel. Understanding these options gives you complete control over your report formatting, allowing you to build cleaner, more readable visuals or make way for smarter, dynamic titles that update with your data.

Building effective reports often involves endless manual tweaks like adjusting chart titles, updating data ranges, and pulling refreshed numbers. While Excel's tools are powerful, the process of connecting disparate data sources and re-building visuals can consume too much of your time. This is where we saw an opportunity to improve the reporting workflow. With Graphed you simply connect your marketing and sales platforms, then create interactive, real-time dashboards by describing what you want to see in plain English. We designed it to handle the tedious data wrangling and visualization work for you, freeing you up to focus on the insights, not just the clicks.