Creating and Using a Chart Template

A chart template is a standard chart (or combination chart) customized in a specific manner. You can subsequently use the template to create new charts. To customize a chart that you can save as a template, following these steps:

1. Create a chart that’s customized the way you want. For example, you can set colors or line styles, modify fonts and type sizes, add 3-D and shadow effects, and add a title.
2. Activate the chart and click the Design tab to display the chart design tools on the Ribbon.
3. Click the Save as Template button. Excel displays the Save Chart Template dialog box.
4. In the File Name box, enter a filename.
5. Click Save.

The template appears in the Templates category of the Change Chart Type dialog box (accessed by clicking the Change Chart Type button in the Design tab). After you select the Templates category, the new chart appears in the My Templates gallery on the right side of the dialog box. If you hover the mouse pointer over the chart, a ScreenTip displays the chart name you supplied in Step 4.

Reusing Your Favorite Charts with Templates

You can put a lot of work into creating the perfect chart. After you've slaved over your creation, it would be nice to have a way to reuse the formatting again in another workbook. Fortunately, Excel makes it possible through a template feature that lets you store your chart settings. Each chart template stores all the chart formatting settings you've made, but none of the data.

Here's how it works. Once you've finished polishing up your chart, complete with all the formatting choices, choose Chart Tools | Design => Type => Save Template. Excel then prompts you to save a chart template file (which it identifies with the .crtx file extension). Choose a descriptive file name, like "Psychedelic Pie Chart," and then click Save.

By default, Excel offers to save the chart template in a Chart subfolder inside your personal template folder. Don't change this folderthe Chart Template folder's the only place Excel looks for templates, so if you place it somewhere else, you can't reuse it. (Of course, nothing's stopping you from copying the chart template file, perhaps to get it into the Charts folder on someone else's computer so they can benefit from all your hard work.)

To reuse your chart template, you need to pick it from the Create Chart or Change Chart Type dialog box. To create a new chart using your template, head to the ribbon's Insert => Charts section, and then click the dialog launcher (the icon of a square with an arrow in it) in the bottom-right corner. This shows the Create Chart dialog box, giving you a full selection of chart types. If you pick the Templates section at the top, you'll see all the chart templates that are stored in the Templates folder.

When you select your template and click OK, Excel creates a new chart with the same formatting but using the data that's selected on your worksheet. Obviously, these options may not all apply to a new chart you create based on your template. Maybe your template includes formatting information for four series, but your new chart has only three. In this case, Excel just ignores any formatting information it's not using.