What Is the Chart Elements Button in Excel?
The small green plus sign that pops up next to an Excel chart is one of its most useful, time-saving features. This is the Chart Elements button, and it's a quick-access menu that lets you add, remove, and modify the key components of your visualization. This article will walk you through every option available in this menu, showing you exactly how to customize your charts to tell a clearer story with your data.
What Is the Chart Elements Button?
In Excel 2013 and newer versions, when you click on a chart, three small buttons appear in the top-right corner. The Chart Elements button is the first one, identifiable by its green plus (+) icon. It’s a shortcut menu that puts all the essential components of a chart - like titles, labels, legends, and gridlines - right at your fingertips.
Before this feature existed, adding a chart title or data labels required navigating through the deep menus of the “Chart Tools” tab in the ribbon. It was a multi-click process that felt clunky and unintuitive. The Chart Elements button streamlines this process, allowing you to toggle elements on or off with a single click and see the changes live on your chart.
Simply click on your chart to make it active, and then click the green ‘+’ icon to open the menu. You'll see a list of available elements. To add one, just check its box. To remove it, uncheck the box.
A Breakdown of Every Chart Element
The list of available elements changes dynamically based on the type of chart you've created (a pie chart won’t have the same options as a line chart, for example). Let's explore the most common elements you'll encounter.
1. Axes
Axes are the lines that form the framework of your chart, providing a reference for measuring your data. Most charts have two axes:
Primary Horizontal (X-axis): This is the bottom boundary of the chart, typically representing categories or time periods (e.g., months, product names, countries).
Primary Vertical (Y-axis): This is the left-side boundary, usually representing the numerical values or quantity being measured (e.g., sales figures, website visitors, temperature).
Using the Chart Elements button, you can toggle these axes on or off. In most cases, you’ll want to keep them visible. However, you might turn off the vertical axis on a bar chart if you use Data Labels on each bar, as the axis might become redundant and add unnecessary clutter.
2. Axis Titles
While axes show the scale of your data, Axis Titles explain what that scale means. Leaving your axes unlabeled is a common mistake that forces your audience to guess what they're looking at. An Axis Title makes it clear.
Checking the "Axis Titles" box adds placeholder text boxes for both the horizontal and vertical axes. You can then click directly into these boxes to type your labels, such as "Sales Revenue ($)" for the vertical axis and "Month" for the horizontal axis. This small step dramatically improves the clarity and professionalism of your chart.
3. Chart Title
The Chart Title provides a concise description of what the entire chart is about. It should give your audience immediate context before they even look at the data points. A good title tells the story in a few words.
Activating this element adds a title field to your chart. You can choose different positions by hovering over "Chart Title" and clicking the arrow that appears:
Above Chart: The default and most common position, placing the title cleanly above the plot area.
Centered Overlay: Positions the title floating over the top part of the chart. This can save vertical space but may obscure your data if you're not careful.
Always give your charts a descriptive title.
4. Data Labels
Data Labels display the exact value of each data point directly on the chart. This is incredibly useful when the precise numbers are just as important as the trend or comparison.
When you enable Data Labels, you'll find several placement options:
Center: Places the label in the middle of each bar or data point.
Inside End: Puts the label at the top end of a bar, but still inside it.
Inside Base: Places the label at the bottom of a bar.
Outside End: Sits the label just outside the top edge of a bar or data point. This is often the cleanest option.
Data Callout: Creates a speech bubble-style label that displays both the category name and its value. This is excellent for pie charts.
5. Data Table
A Data Table adds a small spreadsheet at the bottom of your chart that displays the exact source data used to create the visualization. This is helpful in formal reports or presentations where you want your audience to have access to the raw numbers without having to switch back to the spreadsheet itself.
You can choose to include the legend keys in the table or not. In most day-to-day scenarios, a data table can make a chart look too busy, so use it selectively. A better alternative is often to use well-placed Data Labels and a clear Legend.
6. Error Bars
This is a more statistical element used to indicate the estimated error or uncertainty in a measurement. Error bars visually represent the variability of the data and are standard in scientific and research-based charts. If you do enable them, Excel offers options to show error based on a Standard Error, a Percentage, or a Standard Deviation.
7. Gridlines
Gridlines are the faint lines that run horizontally and vertically across the plot area, originating from the axes. Their purpose is purely functional: to help the viewer's eye track from a data point over to an axis to gauge its value accurately.
The Chart Elements menu gives you fine-tuned control:
Primary Major Horizontal/Vertical: These are the standard gridlines aligned with the main labels on your axes.
Primary Minor Horizontal/Vertical: These add smaller lines between the major ones for even greater precision, but can quickly lead to a cluttered look if overused.
Pro Tip: A minimalist approach often works best. For a clean, modern-looking chart, try using only the Primary Major Horizontal gridlines and removing the vertical ones.
8. Legend
The Legend is your chart's decoder ring. It identifies what each color, pattern, or symbol represents in your chart. A legend is essential whenever you plot more than one data series - for example, a line chart showing website traffic from multiple sources, where each source has its own colored line.
Without a legend, the viewer wouldn't know which line corresponds to which source. You can change its position to fit your layout best:
Right
Top
Left
Bottom
Placing the legend at the top or right is generally the most common and readable practice.
9. Trendline
Available primarily for bar, line, and scatter plot charts, a Trendline is a line that illustrates the prevailing direction or trend in your data. It helps answer the question, "Overall, is this going up, going down, or staying flat?" Excel offers several types of trend lines, including:
Linear: A classic straight line that best fits the data. Perfect for showing steady, consistent growth.
Exponential: Used when data values rise or fall at increasingly higher rates.
Moving Average: Smooths out short-term fluctuations to highlight the longer-term trend.
Smart Customization: Let Your Chart Dictate the Elements
The beauty of the Chart Elements menu is its context-awareness. You won’t see an option for "Axes" on a pie chart because a pie chart doesn't have them. This prevents confusion and streamlines your options.
Here’s how elements relate to common chart types:
For Pie Charts: Data Labels (especially with percentages) and a Chart Title are your most important elements. A Legend may be useful if you have many slices.
For Line Charts with Multiple Series: A Legend is non-negotiable. Axis Titles are crucial for context, and an upward or downward Trendline can add a powerful layer of insight.
For Bar/Column Charts: Axes, Axis Titles, and a Chart Title form the backbone. Data Labels are excellent for clarity, while subtle Gridlines can aid readability.
Always start by asking what story your chart needs to tell, and then add only the elements that support that story. A cluttered chart is just as bad as an unlabeled one.
Beyond the Basics: Using "More Options..."
Next to nearly every element in the menu is a small black arrow. Clicking it reveals more options, including a "More Options..." link at the bottom. This is your gateway to advanced formatting. Selecting it opens up the "Format" task pane on the right side of your screen, where you can customize every last detail - from changing the number format of your data labels to adjusting the shadow, color, and thickness of your chart title.
The Chart Elements button is for adding and removing components quickly. The Format Pane is for making them look perfect.
Final Thoughts
The Chart Elements button isn't just a cosmetic feature, it's a fundamental tool that makes Excel charting more intuitive and efficient. By understanding and using each of its components, you can transform a basic chart into a clear, professional, and compelling piece of data storytelling that your audience will immediately understand.
While mastering Excel is incredibly valuable for detailed manual analysis, there are times you need to connect your data sources and build powerful dashboards without the manual work. We built Graphed for precisely this reason. Instead of fiddling with chart elements, you can use simple English to create real-time reports from sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce in seconds. We automate the setup so you can spend your time on insights, not on clicks and formatting.