Microsoft PowerPoint 2008

Charting Information

When presenting numerical information, charts are often more effective and efficient than text or lists of numbers. PowerPoint 2008 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 2008 allows you to create and display charts of numeric information. You can enter information into an internal data sheet and PowerPoint will generate a chart to appear on your slide.

Creating a New Chart

Select the desired slide
From the Elements Gallery, select Charts
The Charts pane appears.
Select the desired chart
A worksheet opens in Excel 2008.
Within the Excel worksheet, input the desired data
NOTE: For more information on inputting data in Excel, refer to Getting Started with Excel: Entering Numbers.
Save the Excel worksheet in the desired location
NOTE: For more information on saving Excel worksheets, refer to Getting Started with Excel: Saving Your Work.
Reopen PowerPoint 2008
The chart is created with the data that was input in Excel 2008.

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 Excel worksheet 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 changed data labels.

Editing Values

Select the chart
From the Edit menu, select Edit in Excel...
The worksheet with the chart data appears.
From your Excel worksheet, edit the desired values
The chart in PowerPoint 2008 is updated.
Save the Excel worksheet in the desired location
NOTE: For more information on saving Excel worksheets, refer to Getting Started with Excel: Saving Your Work.

Adding Data

Select the chart
From the Edit menu, select Edit in Excel...
The worksheet with the chart data appears.
From your Excel worksheet, in the desired location, type the new data
The chart in PowerPoint 2008 is updated.
Save the Excel worksheet in the desired location
NOTE: For more information on saving Excel worksheets, refer to Getting Started with Excel: Saving Your Work.

Deleting Data

Select the chart
From the Edit menu, select Edit in Excel...
The worksheet with the chart data appears.
From your Excel worksheet, 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 in PowerPoint 2008 is updated.
Save the Excel worksheet in the desired location
NOTE: For more information on saving Excel worksheets, refer to Getting Started with Excel: Saving Your Work.

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.

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: Formatting Palette option

Within the chart, select the data series you want to recolor (e.g., the bars)
Click TOOLBOX
The Formatting Palette appears.
Select Colors, Weights, and Fills
The Colors, Weights, and Fills section expands.
To assign a color to fill the chart data series you have selected, in the Fill section, from the Color pull-down menu, select the desired color
To change the border color on the chart data series you have selected, in the Line section, from the Color pull-down menu, select the desired color

Changing Colors: A Data Series: Dialog Box option

Within the chart, select the data series you want to recolor (e.g., the bars)
From the Format menu, select Data Series...
The Format Data Series dialog box appears.
In the Category list, select Fill
The dialog box refreshes to display Fill options.
If the Solid tab is not selected, select it
From the Color pull-down menu, select the desired color
OPTIONAL: From the Gradient, Picture, and Texture tabs, you can further customize the selected chart item
To assign a color to the border on the chart data series you have selected,
1. In the Categories list, select Line
  The dialog box refreshes to display Line options.
2. Select the Solid tab
3. From the Color pull-down menu, select the desired color
4. Click OK

Changing Colors: A Selected Data Point

Within the chart, select the data series with the data point you want to recolor (e.g., the bars)
NOTE: The entire data series will be selected.
Select the specific data point you want to recolor (e.g., a single bar on a bar chart)
NOTE: Only that data point should now be selected.
To use the Formatting Palette option, from Changing Colors: A Data Series: Formatting Palette option, follow steps 2-5
To use the dialog box option, Changing Colors: A Data Series: Dialog Box option, follow steps 2-7
NOTE: When using the steps for the dialog box option, during step 2, you will select Data Point... instead of Data Series....

Changing Chart Types

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

Select the chart that you want to change
Select the Charts tab
The Charts pane appears.
Select the desired chart
The new chart replaces your previous chart.