The easiest and most detailed way for office workers to draw a chart in Word.

While composing text, documents, if there are data that need to be visually represented, easy to follow, then drawing charts in Word will play an important role. You can present data in various types of charts, edit them to fit the content and format of the document. Below are details on how to draw charts in Word.

Types of charts in Word

Before learning how to draw charts in Word, you need to understand the popular types of charts and their use cases in Word.

Column Chart: The column chart is a common type of chart used to represent various types of data as vertical columns, making it easy for viewers to compare correlations in quantity, scale, volume… of them. Because of this feature, column charts appear frequently in Word documents.

Line Chart: To represent continuous data that changes over time, people usually use line charts. This type of chart will distribute the data vertically, then connect them with a segmented line. The horizontal axis is where the data categories are represented.

Pie Chart: Pie charts are also a popular type of chart, commonly used when it’s necessary to represent market share, control rate, contribution level… Each type of data in the pie chart is converted into a percentage compared to the total data.

Bar Chart: Bar charts are often used to illustrate and compare between items. In many cases, they are also seen as the horizontal form of column charts, as horizontal representations provide a more favorable view for readers.

Area Chart: Area charts are used to show changes over time and focus attention on the overall value of a trend. Similar to pie charts, area charts can provide a visual view of the proportion of component data compared to the entire dataset. However, it is not necessarily related to percentages.

Scatter Chart: A scatter chart has two value axes: the horizontal value axis (x) and the vertical value axis (y). Scatter charts are mostly seen in specialized documents such as scientific data, social statistics.

Stock Chart: As the name suggests, stock charts are used to illustrate the ups and downs of stock prices. In addition, this type of chart can also illustrate the changes of other data, such as the price of gold, the value of cryptocurrencies in the market.

Surface Chart: This chart is very useful when you want to optimize the combination of data sets.

Radar Chart: Data sorted in columns or rows on a worksheet can be displayed in a radar chart. A radar chart compares the aggregated values of several data series.

Combo Chart: Combination charts combine 2 or more types of charts together to help represent data more easily, especially when the data sources are too diverse.

How to draw charts in Word

To draw charts in Word, you perform the following steps:

Step 1: Place the cursor where you want to insert the chart in Word, then select Insert > Chart on the ribbon.

Step 2: In the Chart window, select the appropriate chart type based on the data and presentation needs. An important requirement when drawing charts in Word is to correctly identify the chart type. Each chart type will be suitable for different data representations as described above. Choosing the wrong chart type will make the data presentation difficult to understand, even fail to achieve the purpose.

Step 3: An Excel window titled Chart in Microsoft Word will appear, allowing you to enter data. The headings of the rows and columns are also the corresponding labels on the chart, so in addition to the data, you also need to change these contents accordingly. After completing data entry, close the Excel window and observe the drawing result in Word.

So, after 3 basic steps, you have successfully drawn charts in Word.

Editing charts in Word

After completing the process of drawing charts in Word, you can edit your charts in terms of both form and content.

Change chart colors

By default, Word will provide colors for each type of chart. You can change them to suit your document. To change colors, select the chart, then find the Chart Design tab > Change Colors, choose a pre-designed color scheme.

Change information display

In each chart type, Word provides default ways to display information, present data. You can adjust them accordingly at the Chart Design > Quick Layout section.

Edit chart data

In addition to changing colors and information display, you can also edit, supplement the data of the chart. To do this, right-click on the chart, select Edit Data > Edit Data. At this point, the initial Excel worksheet will appear for you to work with the data. Besides, you can also edit the chart data by going to Chart Design > Edit Data.

Change chart type

After completing the process of drawing charts in Word, if you are not satisfied with the initially selected chart type, you can change it by going to the Chart Design > Change Chart Type tab and select a new chart type.

Move the chart

The chart in Word can be manipulated as a shape object. When you want to move it, simply hover over the chart until the 4-way arrow appears, then hold down the left mouse button to drag it to the desired position. Similarly, you can also resize it by dragging in/out at the corners.

Add captions to the chart

If you want to add notes to the data on the chart, select the + icon, in the Chart Elements section, check the Axis Titles option, then edit the Axis Titles on the chart to the appropriate content.