Paste New Chart Data

July 26, 2017 - by Bill Jelen

Podcast 1978 introduced Custom List for the Fill Handle

You might be responsible for updating charts every month, week, or day. For example, in my last job, a collection of charts were updated during the month-end close process. The charts would track progress throughout the year.

There is an easy way to add new data to an existing chart. Here, the chart shows data for January through May, and there is new data for June that is not on the chart.

Rather than re-create the chart, you can paste new data on the chart. Select the new data in the worksheet, including the heading. Press Ctrl + C to copy.

Click on the chart and press Ctrl + V to paste the data on the chart. As shown below, the new data is added to the existing chart.

As you keep adding months to the right side, what if you want to remove data from the left side? Is there any way to Ctrl + X that data off the chart?

No, but there is another way. Select the chart. Outlines appear around the charted data in the worksheet. A blue box surrounds the data points for the charts, and in each corner of the blue box is a square dot. The square dot is a resizing handle.

Click on the lower, left resizing handle in the blue box and drag to the right.

The data is removed from the left side of the chart.

You can use these resizing handles to resize or drag the blue box to change the data that appears on the chart. Of course, you could have dragged the bottom, right resizing handle to add June to the chart in the first place, but it is good to know this copy and paste trick in case the chart and data are on different sheets in the workbook.

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Title Photo: Pixabay