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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
144.1 KB Advanced Chart Options - Completed.pptx
143.3 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.

Good practice when working with charts

  • 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.

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.

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  • 00:04 In this video we start adding some chart elements,
  • 00:06 editing particular chart elements, and looking for potential problems.
  • 00:11 So we're going to start with a chart on our slide in PowerPoint and
  • 00:14 there's another video that covers inserting charts onto slides.
  • 00:18 I select this particular chart and notice immediately it has a title already and
  • 00:22 I'm given three little fly out icons.
  • 00:25 The little plus sign icon allows me to add or
  • 00:27 remove particular chart elements from the chart.
  • 00:31 A style and a color icon and what I've termed a filter icon to add or
  • 00:35 remove series and categories.
  • 00:38 For the chart elements icon, it's the same as if
  • 00:41 I went to the design tab on the ribbon and used the add chart elements button here.
  • 00:47 So I click on this icon and add labels to the primary horizontal and
  • 00:51 primary vertical axes.
  • 00:54 And these display on the chart immediately.
  • 00:56 I get values for the vertical axis and category names for the horizontal axis.
  • 01:02 I also add axis titles, and we will rename them shortly.
  • 01:06 I don't need data labels, a data table, or error bars, but it's really
  • 01:10 handy to have them automatically display as I move my mouse over them.
  • 01:14 Now error bars are really more about advanced statistics.
  • 01:18 I also need a legend, and
  • 01:19 it's good practice to let users know what your chart is telling them
  • 01:23 with as much necessary detail as you can add without, of course, clutter.
  • 01:27 Your chart should explain itself without you there to explain it to someone.
  • 01:32 So I'm happy with those additions to the chart elements.
  • 01:35 Editing elements on the chart is as simple as clicking within the element, such as as
  • 01:40 this chart title, and I can drag my mouse over the text and type in city weather.
  • 01:46 And I can click within the vertical axis tile and
  • 01:49 type in temp with a full stop because it's abbreviated.
  • 01:54 And the horizontal axis, I type city.
  • 01:57 If we go to the next slide notice that we have what looks like different charts but
  • 02:01 they have very similar data.
  • 02:03 So let's do some fixing.
  • 02:05 First, let's make them look the same.
  • 02:07 If I select chart one on the left,
  • 02:09 the chart styles group shows me the chart style seven is selected.
  • 02:14 So I apply that to chart two, select the chart, and click the Start button.
  • 02:19 Now, I also notice the colors of the columns don't match.
  • 02:24 Now, this might be because some of the chart elements have been changed sometime
  • 02:27 previously after a style was applied.
  • 02:31 So with the second chart selected I click the Change Colors menu button and
  • 02:35 I can see that the first color ramp entry is selected for that chart.
  • 02:39 When I select the first chart,
  • 02:40 the change colors menu button, the second color ramp is selected.
  • 02:46 So I click the first ramp, which matches the one used in the other chart, and
  • 02:49 now they match.
  • 02:51 Now, to fix the scales.
  • 02:53 Charts with similar data must be compared with similar scales.
  • 02:57 It drives me crazy to see chart scales out of whack or
  • 03:00 changing throughout the presentation.
  • 03:03 So I find the chart that has the greatest scalar range for the data,
  • 03:07 and use the upper limit of that data as a scale for the other chart.
  • 03:12 Notice as I click on the axis, the little bounding box changes.
  • 03:16 If I double click this, the format axis pane appears,
  • 03:19 which is the same as if I right click and the Format Axis menu item.
  • 03:25 Notice that we have two dropdown items available, axis options and text options.
  • 03:31 Notice how axis options is colored, which means that it's currently selected and
  • 03:36 then the four icons that are fill it, line effects, size and
  • 03:40 properties, and axis options.
  • 03:43 It's the access options, which is colored to show that it's selected.
  • 03:47 The data on one chart ranges from 0 to 40, while the other ranges from 0 to 25.
  • 03:53 So in this chart I select the maximum box, type in 40,
  • 03:58 and press enter on the keyboard.
  • 03:59 Pressing enter sets that figure as an option and
  • 04:03 the reset button becomes available because Excel, which is really running this chart
  • 04:06 in PowerPoint, understands that I've changed the data.
  • 04:10 So now our charts are comparable in scale.
  • 04:13 Further down the pane we have items such as
  • 04:16 the horizontal axis cross, there's that.
  • 04:19 Which is where the x axis crosses the y axis.
  • 04:22 And the logarithmic scale, which is a scale to the base of ten
  • 04:25 where each increment is in an order of magnitude rather than a linear scale.
  • 04:31 An example is the Richter scale for earthquakes.
  • 04:33 While we're here, it's worth looking at tick marks.
  • 04:37 The major or minor tick marks can be outside or inside.
  • 04:41 I don't usually worry about minor ones.
  • 04:42 It would be easier if we zoom in with the scroll wheel
  • 04:46 of my mouse while I hold the CTRL key.
  • 04:48 Format axis.
  • 04:51 The tick marks drop down.
  • 04:54 Measure on the outside, and there they are.
  • 04:56 I want to fix the gridline spacing, so I select the gridlines with my mouse.
  • 05:02 Notice that the task panes turns into a format measure gridlines option.
  • 05:07 But I really want the interval for gridlines,
  • 05:09 and it can be quite tricky sometimes to know where to go for an option.
  • 05:13 So get back to the vertical axis.
  • 05:15 Double click Format Axis, Axis Options, and
  • 05:19 I'm going to make the measure unit as 10.
  • 05:22 Much better.
  • 05:24 Finally, let's have a look at the legend, which is turned on.
  • 05:28 So click the little plus sign in the legend menu item, which turns on,
  • 05:32 toggles the legend on and off.
  • 05:34 However while I'm here the little fly out arrows gives me placement options
  • 05:38 of whether I wanna place the legend to the right, the top,
  • 05:42 the left or at the bottom of the chart.
  • 05:46 Now, quite often, we're used to seeing a legend to the right of the chart.
  • 05:50 This legend was actually turned on, but it was at the bottom of the chart and
  • 05:54 its location may fool some people into thinking it's actually not there.
  • 05:58 But as we click on various locations, and even as we hover our mouse over,
  • 06:02 we can see a preview of where the legend will end up being located.
  • 06:05 And we can even drill down further by selecting More Options,
  • 06:08 which gives us the Format Legend task pane.
  • 06:12 So, in summary, there is just so much to charting,
  • 06:14 it's often easier to use a chart style.
  • 06:17 To quickly format the chart and let the pair of both Excel and
  • 06:20 PowerP oint do the work, but you can also access these icons,
  • 06:24 and these options are in the ribbon as well.
  • 06:26 Remember the task pane works on the context of what you have selected on
  • 06:30 the chart or you can right click on an item and select the appropriate menu item.
  • 06:35 Good luck with charts, they're are so powerful when constructed and
  • 06:37 displayed well.

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