Pie charts are used to show percentages of the whole, and Line charts excel with data trends. The remaining chart designs include Area, Stock, Surface, Combo, Pareto, Histogram, and Sunburst.

Bar Chart . In an Excel bar chart, each data point is represented by a rectangular, horizontal bar. The length of each bar is determined by the size of its corresponding value in the data set.

It's easy to turn an Excel chart into a visually compelling object. Susan Harkins walks through the steps for jazzing up data points with a simple formatting trick.