Microsoft PowerPoint 2004

Charting Information

When presenting numerical information, charts are often more effective and efficient than text or lists of numbers. PowerPoint makes it easy to add and customize charts for use in your presentation.

Creating Charts
Updating Chart Information
Changing Colors
Changing Chart Types

Creating Charts

PowerPoint allows you to create and display charts of numeric information. You can enter information into an internal datasheet and PowerPoint will generate a chart to appear on your slide.

Creating a New Chart

From the Standard toolbar, click NEW SLIDE
A new slide appears.
Click SLIDE LAYOUT
The Slide Layout dialog box appears.
Select the chart or table design you desire for the slide
Click APPLY
In the slide, double click DOUBLE CLICK TO ADD CHART
Graph opens a default presentation already formatted.
Make the necessary changes to the Datasheet

Updating Chart Information

Once you have created a chart, you may want to update it by adding or deleting data. You can do this by switching to the datasheet you used to create the chart and changing values, entering new data, or deleting existing data. The chart is automatically updated, including the legend if you change data labels.

Changing Chart Values

With the chart selected, from the Edit menu, select Chart Object » Edit
OR
On the Dock, click the DATASHEET
On the Datasheet, select the cell you want to change
Type the new value
Press [return]
The chart is updated on the slide.

Adding Data

From the Dock, click the DATASHEET
The Datasheet appears.
In the appropriate location, type the new data
Press [return]
The chart is updated on the slide.

Deleting Data

From the Dock, click the DATASHEET
The Datasheet appears.
On the Datasheet, select the values you wish to delete
HINT: If you want to delete an entire column or row, click on the appropriate column or row identifier.
Press [delete]
The chart is updated on the slide.

Changing Colors

While PowerPoint’s built-in templates automatically assign specific colors to certain chart elements, you are not locked in to those predefined choices. Any color that is available in the Color palette can be used for any chart object.

Chart objects can be assigned fill effects or colors to help them stand out from the slide background and to distinguish them from other chart data points. Fill effects add shading, texture, or a pattern to the area of an object within its borders. Colors fill objects the same way as fill effects and can be used on objects such as bars, columns, and data markers to set them apart from other data sets.

You can change an entire data series or a selected data point within the series.

Changing Colors: A Data Series

From the Dock, click the DATASHEET
The Datasheet appears and the chart is now available for editing.
Within the chart, select the data series you want to recolor (i.e., the bars)
From the Format menu, select Selected Data Series...
The Format Data Series dialog box appears with the Colors and Lines tab displayed.

To change the border on the chart area you have selected, from the Line area of the dialog box, select the appropriate options:

Automatic	Applies the default border color
No Line	Removes the border from display
Dashed	Applies the selected dashed line border
Style	Assigns a new line style to the custom border
Color	Assigns a new line color to the custom border
Transparency	Defines the opacity of the selected color
Weight	Assigns a new line weight to the custom border

To assign a color to fill the chart data series you have selected, in the Fill section of the dialog box, select the appropriate fill options:

Automatic	Automatically applies the default color
No Line	Ensures a transparent chart background or object background
Color	Applies the color you select from the color palette
Transparency	Defines the opacity of the selected color

To apply your color choices, click OK
The new format is applied to the object border and/or object areas.

Changing Colors: A Selected Data Point

Double click the chart
The Datasheet appears and the chart is now available for editing.
Click once on the data point you want to recolor
The entire data series is selected.
Click again on the data point you want to recolor (e.g., a single bar on a bar chart)
Only that data point should now be selected.
From the Format menu, select Selected Data Point...
The Format Data Point dialog box appears.
To change the border on the data point you have selected, from the Line section of the dialog box, select the appropriate option
To assign a color to fill the data point you have selected, in the Fill section of the dialog box, select the appropriate fill option
To apply your color choices, click OK

Changing Chart Types

You can change the type of your chart even once you have already applied formatting.

Double click the chart that you want to change
The Datasheet appears and the chart is now available for editing.
From the Chart menu, select Chart Type...
The Chart Type dialog box appears.
Under the Standard Types tab, choose a new chart style
OR
Under the Custom Types tab, choose from an extended list of chart types
Click OK