PowerPoint charts, just like illustrations in a book, are designed to help you illustrate
your point.
Things like color, layout, and even the chart type can all be changed to better fit the
information you're trying to convey.
Take this account of our book store's sales figures.
Right now, the columns are grouped by genre, but I'm more interested in taking a look at
trends over time - which means grouping the data by year.
There's an easy way to change that.
Just make sure your chart is selected.
Then, from the Design tab, click the Edit Data command; this opens an Excel worksheet.
Now click back to PowerPoint and choose Switch Row/Column.
See how that rearranged the data?
Basically the years and the genres have switched places.
You can always experiment with this to see which option is going to work best.
If you want to try a different chart all together, you can click Change Chart Type, and pick
something else from the dialog box.
I think I'll go with a line chart this time.
Line charts work well for data like this.
For example, we can see right away that Classics had an unusually good year in 2007, and also
that Mysteries are starting to catch up to Romance novels.
The lines would be easier to see, though, if they were thicker.
Let's see if we can change that by selecting a different Chart Style.
Just click the arrow here to open the full menu.
That's much better.
The last thing I'd like to change is the Chart Layout itself.
We have lots of layouts to choose from - not all of them will work for the data you're
trying to present.
Just keep going until you find the one you like.
How does that look?
As you can see, customizing your chart is easy - and with everything available on the
Design tab, you can achieve exactly the look and feel you want.