THE CHART PACK

20 advanced Excel charts, free

Mekko, fan chart, bullet, gauge, waterfall — the ones Excel won’t build for you. All finished and working. Free, instant, yours to keep.

What’s in the pack

20 charts with 37 working chart objects between them
Mekko, fan chart, funnel, bullet, panel and dot plot
Every helper column left visible, so you can see how they work
Self-updating titles, staggered labels, moving date lines
Works in Excel 365, 2021 and 2019 — PC and Mac

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One practical Excel tip a week.

How to Make Excel Chart Titles Update Automatically

Watch the 6-minute video or follow the written steps below. The practice file is in the free pack above.

Step-by-step

A typed chart title goes stale the moment the data changes: the numbers say Q2 but the title still says Q1. Link the title to a cell instead and it updates itself. You can even make it calculate things like growth.

Method 1: link the title to a cell

1. Put the title text in a cell

Type your title in a cell, for example 2026 Annual Revenue Comparison in A1.

2. Link the chart title

Click the chart title once so it’s selected. Click in the formula bar at the top, type =, click A1 and press Enter. Now when you change A1, the title changes too.

Method 2: a title that calculates

3. Build the title with a formula

In the example, years are in row 4 (2025 in B4, 2026 in C4) and the totals in row 9. In an empty cell such as A12:

=C4&" revenue went up by "&INT((C9-B9)/B9*100)&"% from "&B4

The ampersand (&) joins text and numbers together, so mind the spaces inside the quotes. INT rounds the growth down to a whole number so there are no long decimals. The result reads 2026 revenue went up by 31% from 2025, and it’s all calculated from the data.

4. Link the title to that cell

Click the chart title, type = in the formula bar, click A12 and press Enter. Change the data and the whole sentence rebuilds itself. The same idea works for things like Top region: North, which flips to South if South’s revenue overtakes it.

Two common mistakes

Don’t type the equals sign inside the title box itself: it has to go in the formula bar. The title box only takes plain text.
Keep the linked cell where it is. If you delete its row or move it, the title link breaks.

YOUR NEXT STEP

Open any chart. Click Select Data. That's where the trick lives.

Almost every “how did they build that” chart is the same idea — a helper column feeding an invisible series. Once you spot the pattern you stop needing tutorials. You look at a chart and think “that’s two series stacked, one of them hidden”, and you’re usually right.

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Andreas Exadaktylos · Microsoft-certified Excel instructor · mellontraining.com