Locked lesson.

Upgrade

About this lesson

Understand and work with the tricky parts of charts such as axes and legends.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2010, 2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Advanced Chart Options.pptx
128.1 KB Advanced Chart Options - Complete.pptx
128.4 KB

Quick reference

Topic

Working with advanced chart features.

When to use

To customize and populate a chart that is already inserted on a slide.

Instructions

  • Chart elements can be added to a chart from:
    • The pop-out icon beside a chart when the chart is selected.
    • The Design tab, and then click the Add Chart Element drop-down arrow.
    • The chart elements pop-out icon includes a fly-out arrow to select sub-categories of that element, or further options.
  • Right-click any Chart element or double/triple clicking it will bring up the Task Pane to customize that particular option.
  • The context of the Task Pane changes depending on which chart element is selected.
  • General groups of options include Fill and Line, and Effects.
  • A chart should have a relevant title.
  • Each axis title should explain the category of data presented and the numerical range of the data.
  • The legend should identify and explain the series data.
  • A large (excessive) number of major gridlines is not necessary.
  • If you have to charts on a slide with similar data types, the scales of the Y axes should be the same to allow meaningful comparisons.

Good practice when working with charts

Also note:

The Format task pane contains a drop-down arrow item that allows you to select a chart element quickly such as chart area, chart title, etc. These can also be selected with the pointer on the chart and the Task pane will change to that option.

The Task Pane can be dragged to another monitor (if connected to your computer) and remain open while you work on charts.

Other fly-out icons include a Chart Styles icon and a Chart Filters icon.

Login to download
  • 00:03 In this video we start adding some chart elements, editing particular chart elements, and looking for potential problems. So we’re going to
  • 00:10 start with a chart on our slide in PowerPoint, and there’s another video that covers inserting charts onto slides. I select this particular chart
  • 00:17 and notice immediately it has a chart title already, and I’m given three little fly out icons. The little plus sign icon allows me to add or
  • 00:26 remove particular chart elements from the chart. A style and a color icon, and what I term a filter icon to add or remove series and categories. For
  • 00:36 the chart elements icon, it’s the same as if I went to the design tab on the ribbon and used the add chart elements button here. So I click
  • 00:43 on this icon and add labels to the primary horizontal and primary vertical axes. And these display on the chart immediately; I get values for
  • 00:51 the vertical axis and category names for the horizontal axis. I also add axis titles and we will rename them shortly. I don’t need data labels, a
  • 01:01 data table, or error bars, but it’s really handy to have them automatically display as I move my mouse over them. Now error bars are really
  • 01:09 about more advanced statistics. I also need a legend. It’s good practice to let users know what your chart is telling them with as much
  • 01:16 necessary detail as you can add without of course, clutter; your chart should explain itself without you there to explain it for someone. So
  • 01:24 I’m happy with those additions to the chart elements. Editing the elements on the chart is as simple as clicking within the element, such
  • 01:31 as this chart title and I can drag my mouse over the text and type in city weather, and I can click within the vertical axis title and type in temp.
  • 01:40 with a full stop because it’s abbreviated, and the horizontal axis I type city. If we go to the next slide, notice that we have what looks like
  • 01:49 different charts but they have very similar data. So let’s do some fixing. First, let’s make them look the same. If I select chart 1 on the left, the
  • 01:58 chart styles group, shows me that style 7 is selected, so I apply that to chart 2, select the chart, and click the style button. Now I also
  • 02:08 notice the colors of the columns don’t match. Now this might be because some of the chart elements have been changed sometime
  • 02:14 previously after the style was applied. So with the second chart selected, I click the change colors menu button and I can see that the first
  • 02:22 color ramp entry is selected for that chart. When I select the first chart, the change colors menu button, the second colour ramp is selected, so I
  • 02:31 click the first ramp, which matches the one used on the other chart, and now they match. Now to fix the scales; charts with similar data
  • 02:39 must be compared with similar scales. It drives me crazy to see chart scales out of whack or changing as a presentation advances throughout
  • 02:47 the presentation. So I find the chart that has the greatest scale range for the data and use the upper limit of that data as the scale for the other
  • 02:57 chart. Notice as I click on the axis, the little bounding box changes; if I double click this, the format axis pane appears, which is the same as
  • 03:06 if I right click and the format axis menu item. Notice that we have two drop down items available. Axis options and text options. Notice
  • 03:16 how axis options is colored, which means that it’s currently selected, and then the four icons that are fill and line, effects, size and properties,
  • 03:25 and axis options. It’s the axis options which is colored to show that it is selected. The data on one chart ranges from 0 to 40 while the other
  • 03:35 ranges from 0 to 25. So in this chart, I select the maximum box, type in 40, and press ENTER on the keyboard. Pressing ENTER sets that figure
  • 03:44 as an option and the reset button becomes available because Excel, which is really running this chart in PowerPoint, understands that I have
  • 03:51 changed the data. So now our charts are comparable in scale. Further down the pane we have items such as the horizontal axis crosses
  • 03:59 at, which is where the x-axis crosses the y-axis and the logarithmic scale which is a scale to the base of 10 where each increment is in order of
  • 04:08 magnitude, rather than a linear scale, an example is the Richter scale for earthquakes. While we’re here, it’s worth looking at tick
  • 04:16 marks. The major or minor tick marks can be outside it or inside. I don’t usually worry about minor ones and it would be easier if we zoom in
  • 04:23 with the scroll wheel on my mouse while I hold the CTL key. Format axis, the tick marks drop down area. Major on the outside and there they
  • 04:33 are. I also want to fix the gridline spacing, so I select the gridlines with my mouse; notice that the task panes turns into a format major group
  • 04:42 lines option. But I really want the interval for gridlines, and it can be quite tricky sometimes to know where to go for an option, so I go back to
  • 04:49 the vertical axis, double click, format axis, axis options, and I’m going to make the major unit as 10; much better. Finally, let’s have a look at the
  • 04:59 legend which is turned on. So click the little plus sign and the legend menu item which turns or toggles the legend on and off. However, while I’m
  • 05:08 here, the little fly out arrow gives me placements options of whether I want to place the legend to the right, the top, the left or at the bottom of the
  • 05:16 chart. Now quite often we’re used to seeing a legend to the right of the chart. This legend was actually turned on but it was at the bottom of the
  • 05:23 chart and its location may fool some people into thinking that it’s actually not there. But as we click on various locations, and even as we hover
  • 05:31 our mouse over, we can see a preview of where the legend will end up being located and we can even drill down further by selecting more
  • 05:39 options, which gives us the format legend task pane. So in summary, there is just so much to charting; it’s often easier to use a chart style to
  • 05:47 quickly format the chart and let the power of both Excel and PowerPoint do the work for you but you can also access these icons and these
  • 05:55 options are in the ribbon as well. Remember the task pane works on the context of that you have selected on the chart. Or you can right click on
  • 06:02 an item and select the appropriate menu item. Good luck with charts; they are so powerful when constructed and displayed well.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Gift this course