How to filter chart data with a table filter

When plotting unsummarized data, the chart filter may not be convenient.

If I insert a line chart, Excel automatically builds a condensed horizontal axis and plots all the data.

And I can easily use the Chart Filters menu to exclude everything but the close price.

But what if I only want to show data from 2016 and 2017?

The way the entries are listed in the filter, I’ll have to uncheck a lot of checkboxes.

One way to apply a filter is to nudge the Filter menu on the Data tab.

In the Format Task pane, under chart properties select Don’t move or size with cells.

With this done, I can now use the filter on the data itself to set the date range.

When I click OK, the chart is updated.

But the date range is being handled by the filter on the data itself.

So, entries before 2016, simply don’t appear.

So in summary, filtering the data directly is good way to filter out a large amount unsummarized data.

Pivot Charts also provide another good way to do this.

We’ll cover Pivot Charts separately in upcoming videos.