Alex Velez removes junk from Excel charts:
Custom chart templates aren’t a new feature, but I’m not sure how widely known they are. In a guest post, Bill Dean briefly recommended using these to create a non-standard Excel chart, The Bullet Graph. Another use-case is to create what I call a “clean-slate-template.” This is a chart template that incorporates many best practices and allows you—the creator—to focus on the strategic use of color and words while saving time on formatting.
This is nice because it eliminates the need to click-click-click on every chart, removing the same things over and over.