How do I insert a text box in a chart (excel 2011)?

This issue of a floating text box into an Excel 2011 graph drove me crazy for a while, but then I thought like a PC guy and realized that Microsoft has incorporated the Office PC approach to text boxes into Excel 2011.  

It is really easy now to put a nice text box in Excel 2011.  Good Job Microsoft.

All you do is insert a "shape" into the graph.  When you select the shape on the graph, a tool bar above will appear, and on the left side, you will see various colors of the shape with letters in those shapes.  Click on one of these shapes with letters inside of it, and you will have the color and text.  Just select your shape on the graph and type away.

Heck--why didn't I think of that in the first place???

MacBU for some unknown reason left Text Box off the Chart Menu Bar as well as not putting an icon on the Ribbon. They also made it hard, but not impossible, to customize the Chart Menu Bar with the Text Box command.

One way (a bit slow, but it works):

• select a workbook cell. Choose View/Toolbars/Customize Toolbars & Menus...
•  in the Customize Toolbars and Menus dialog's Toolbars and Menus pane, create a new toolbar.
• In the small menu bar underneath the main menu bar, select Insert.
• Holding the Option key down, drag the Text Box icon to the new toolbar. Click OK to exit the dialog.
• Select your chart (to activate the Chart Menu rather than the Workbook Menu)
• Choose View/Toolbars/Customize Toolbars & Menus...
• Drag the Text Box command from your custom toolbar to the small menu bar's Insert menu.
• In the Customize Toolbars & Menus dialog, delete the custom menu bar. Click OK.

You should now be able to insert a text box in your Chart. Close XL to save the Toolbar preferences.

Alternatively (and much faster):

• Type Opt-F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor (VBE).
• Choose View/Immediate Window

-in the Immediate Window, type or paste this line, followed by the Return key:

Commandbars("Chart Menu Bar").Controls("Insert").Controls.Add id:=10865

Type  Opt-F11 to exit the VBE and return to XL. Close XL to save the preference.

here how you do it with ms office mac 2011. (insert text box)

first click inside the chart that you want the textbox.

at top menu of worksheet look for big A part of wordart.

click on it and in the chart it will show a big text box{ your text here}

reform the text box font and size to your liking.

move the box to where you want it on the chart.

In ribbon hit ' A-QUICK STYLES"  and clear wordart.

this reforms you text and box to bare minimum.

box is ready to use & will stay captive within the chart area.

I hope this ends the discussion on creating text boxes on MS excel charts.

v.strano

The insert/text box command doesn't work if a chart is selected or if there is only a chart on the worksheet. 

Either

select a cell beside the chart and do insert/text box and drag it on the chart

or

go to a worksheet, insert/text box. Then copy that text box, go to the chart and paste it.

found an answer to insert text box in ms office for mac 2011.

create your chart first.   

only way to get insert at top toolbar is to click in chart.

 insert 'wordart'

  this will show a big text box on your chart. 

 reform the text box font and size.

 move box to where you want it on chart.

 in ribbon hit "A-quick styles"  scroll down to where it says 'clear word art'

 this reformats your text to bare minimum.

box is  ready and will stay captive withing the chart area, even if you move chart around.

(bigstran)