Context Menus

The right-click context menus are where there you can access additional functionality for working with charts and ranges.

The most frequently used menus are the Chart Area context menu and the Range context menu. Other menus are listed below:

• Chart Title
• Axis
• Axis Name
• Series
• Data Point
• Data Point Label
• Legend

Chart Title

There is a single command added to the Chart Title Context Menu.

• QuickChart Format Title – This will apply the template formatting to the title of the chart.

Axis

There are three additional menu items added to the Axis context menu.

• QuickChart Format Axis – This will apply the template formatting to the selected axis, including the styling and number formatting.
• Adjust Axis Scale – This item has three items in the sub menu:
  • Set Axis Minimum to Zero – Quickly fix the selected axis minimum value at zero
  • Halve Axis Maximum – Useful for zooming in on the lower values of a chart, this will set the axis maximum value to approximately halve its present value. This can be used repeatedly if required.
  • Set Major Unit to 1 – Useful on Category axes to show all values on the axis.
  • Reset Axis Limits – Allow Excel to set the minimum and maximum values and interval spacing automatically.

• Set Axis Crossing – This item has four items in the sub-menu:
  • Axis Crosses at Minimum (an option hidden in the Excel interface, usually accessible only with VBA)
  • Axis Crosses at Maximum
  • Axis Crosses at Zero
  • Reset Axis Crossing – Allow Excel to set the crossing value automatically.

Axis Title

There is a single command added to the Axis Title Context Menu.

• QuickChart Format Axis Title – This will apply the template formatting to the selected axis title

Series

The Series context menu has an additional three menu items:

• QuickChart Data Labels – This is much more flexible than the standard “Add Labels” in Excel. All of the labels are set from a range and will update with changing data.
  • Add Series Labels From Range – This allows you to select a range which holds the labels for the all of data points in that series.
  • Label First Point – This allows you to select a single cell which contains the required label for just the first point.
  • Label Last Point – As with the previous item, but for the last data point in the series.

• Series Formatting – There are three options in the sub-menu
  • Make Series Invisible – Quickly sets the Fill and Line colours to transparent, allowing you to keep the data in the chart but hidden.
  • Set Series Intensity – This is described in more detail here.
  • Set Series Colour – This is described in more detail here.

• Switch to Secondary Axis – This will quickly switch the selected series from the Primary Axis to the Secondary Axis. This is replaced by a Switch to Primary Axis option for any series plotted on the secondary axis as shown below.

Data Point

There are six commands added to the Data Point context menu.

• Add Label From Range – Allows you to select a cell containing the label to be applied to that single data point.
• Make Point Invisible – Quickly set the Fill, Line and Marker to be transparent so it can be hidden without being removed.
• Copy Formatting Forward – If you change the formatting of a single point, e.g., the colour, you can copy it forward to every subsequent point, as shown below where the second half of the yellow line is now green.

• Copy Formatting Back – The same as previous, but changing the formatting of each proceeding point to match the selected point.
• Add Vertical Line – This will add a new series to the chart in the form of a vertical line passing through the selected point. The Y-axis will have its limits fixed to display the line correctly.

• Add Horizontal Line – As previous but with a horizontal line through the point. The X-axis will have its limits fixed to display the line correctly.

More than one vertical or horizontal lines can be added and they can be removed in the usual manner of deleting series.

Data Labels

There are two commands added to the Data Point Label menu

• QuickChart Format Data Labels – This will apply the template formatting to the data labels.
• QuickChart Fix Data Labels – Where labels are set by being linked to a range this command will change them to that fixed value.

Legend

There are three commands added to the Legend context menu.

• QuickChart Format Legend – This will apply the QuickChart template formatting to the legend.
• Clean Up Legend – If any of the data series in the chart have zero values, they will be removed from the legend. This can make it clearer to focus on the important series.
• Reset Legend – If you want to restore any deleted values to the legend this command will do so.