I've been working on a presentation for the company I work for and have finished the slide
about our class. I'm ready to add a chart on slide 4 now.
In PowerPoint, you have the ability to create various types of charts.
A chart is a useful tool that you can use to communicate numeric information in a concise
and often easy to read format. For example, you could create chart illustrating
the sales revenue per region, or the sales total per salesperson.
As we practice creating charts in PowerPoint, you'll see how many types of charts there
are and the kind of information you can use them for to communicate.
On this slide, I want to insert a chart that shows our demographics on who took classes
at our center last year. There are two ways to insert a chart.
If your slide layout has a placeholder like this, you can just click the Insert Chart
command. Or, you can select the Insert tab on the Ribbon
and then click the Insert Chart command. The Insert Chart dialog box appears.
You can see that we have some common chart types such as column, line, pie, and bar charts,
and some other chart options such as area, doughnut, and radar charts.
You can scroll up and down to see all the charts, or click the labels on the left to
move through the options. Certain charts work better for certain types
of data. As you work with charts, you'll learn more
about this. I think a column chart will work and I like
this 3-D one. Just click it to select it, and then click
OK. This opens Excel, and shows PowerPoint on
one side and Excel on the other. The data you see in the Excel spreadsheet
is the data used for the PowerPoint chart. This is called source data.
Don't worry! This is default, or placeholder, data that you are expected to change.
Ok, now that we've inserted the chart, I'm ready to add my own data.
Instead of Series 1, I'll put Women. Then, I'll press the Tab key to move to the
next cell. As I do this, the new data appears in the
PowerPoint chart to the right. I'll go ahead and enter my next heading.
Now, I don't need this column with Series 3.
But, this blue line here represents the data range that is used in the chart.
To increase or decrease this, we just need to click and drag the lower-right corner of
the range like the instructions recommend and now Series 3 is not included in the data
range for the chart. Now, just click and drag to select the cells.
Release the mouse button and press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Ok, the other labels are age ranges and I'll just enter those in the Excel spreadsheet.
Under 18....18-30....then 31-50, 51-65, and the last one....Over 65.
Now I just need to click and drag the range so that last one is included.
And our new data appears in the chart. Now, all I need to do is add our data from
last year. I'm actually going to paste this from another
spreadsheet to save some time. We're done with Excel so let's
go ahead and close the spreadsheet without saving it.
You can see the data from the Excel spreadsheet in our PowerPoint chart.
When we inserted the chart, 3 new tabs appeared on the Ribbon.
These contain various Chart Tools and commands that you can use to modify your chart.
Let's take a look at a few. From the Design tab we can change the Chart
Type. Just click the command and the Insert Chart
dialog box will appear. Now, just choose another chart type it can
be a different column chart, or another type altogether.
I'll try this one which will just change it slightly.
If you ever need to edit the data, just click the Edit Data command and an Excel spreadsheet
will open. From here you can go ahead and edit the data.
You can also change the Chart Style, which will give you some different color options.
Click the More drop-down arrow to see all your options.
Here, I like this one. I'll just click it to select it, and now my
chart style has changed. In addition to chart styles, you can change
the chart layout. Basically, the chart layout just displays
the information in various ways. For example, if I click this layout my chart
will have a chart title. Let's see I'll try this one.
This chart is nice because it has a chart title, a legend that identifies what each
color represents, and labels for each axis. To enter text, just select the text box and
type your text. On the x axis, or horizontal axis, I'll just
enter Age Ranges. Now, on the y axis, which is often referred
to as the vertical axis, I'll enter People Served.
I thought I wanted a chart title, but I don't really think I need one.
I could choose another Chart Layout or I can modify specific areas of the chart from the
Layout tab. Let's select it and take a look.
As you can see, there are a lot of commands available from this tab - -too many to tell
you about. The ones you will use the most often are in
the Labels group. You can click the Chart Titles command to
remove a chart title or add a Chart Title. We'll select None to remove it.
You can click the Axis Titles command and choose to hide or display the horizontal,
or x axis. You can also hide the vertical, or y axis,
or choose to display the axis label horizontally or vertically.
Right now our legend is to the right of the chart, but if you click the Legend command
you'll see a menu with various locations you can move it.
Just select an option to move the legend. Let's see...let's move it above the chart.
Now, click Data Labels and select Show to display all data labels above each column.
The Axes group gives you some commands that control both axes and which gridlines are
visible. And the Background group controls some visual
aspects of the chart, such as whether the background of the chart, or the chart wall,
is grey or black, and the color of the chart floor.
You'll notice the Analysis group is not active right now.
That's because we're working with a column chart.
This group becomes active when you work with other charts, like line charts.
Finally, the Format tab gives you some options to change the colors and overall look of the
chart. This tab may look familiar if you've worked
with tables or shapes before. From here I may want to change the style of
the box that surrounds the chart by selecting a shape style or even format my axis labels
with a word art style. Charts can be as simple or as complex as you
like in PowerPoint. With 3 tabs of Chart Tools including over
30 commands plus layouts and styles, you'll have a lot of control over the chart you create.