"Company Statistics" - Creating Graphs and Charts

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About this lesson

We will learn how to create a column, sunburst and map chart to tell the story of their data visually. Create charts on-the-fly or use data already stored in an Excel worksheet.

Quick reference

Slide 9: Company Statistics - Creating Graphs and Charts

Charts and graphs help us visualize data. Maybe we want to track sales over a period of time. Or show a breakdown of demographics. Or maybe how many hits our website has recieved over a 6 months period. All of these types of data can be displayed in a chart. 

In this lesson, we will create 3 different charts: a clustered column chart, a sunburst chart and a map chart. 

When to use

We would use a chart whenever we have data that we want to visualize, analyze, and interpret. 

Instructions

Insert a Clustered Column Chart

To create a chart, we need some data to go in it. We can type the figures directly into the Excel window in PowerPoint or copy and paste data from an existing file. 

  1. From the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, select Chart. 
  2. From the Insert Chart dialog box, click the Column category. 
  3. Select Clustered Column. 
  4. Click Insert. 

Add Data

An Excel window will open whenever we add a chart to a slide. The window will contain 'dummy' data that can be modified manually by typing into the cells or we can copy and paste data from an external source. 

  1. Open the Excel file 'Column chart - sales by item.xlsx'.  
  2. Click in the data and press CTRL+A to select all.
  3. Press CTRL+C to copy the data. 
  4. Go back to the Excel window in PowerPoint. 
  5. Click in the first cell and press CTRL+V to paste the data. 
  6. The chart will update to reflect the new information. 
  7. Click the X to close the Excel window. 

Insert a Sunburst Chart

The Sunburst chart is ideal for displaying hierarchical data. Each level of the hierarchy is represented by one ring or circle with the innermost circle as the top of the hierarchy.

  1. Press CTRL+D to duplicate the clustered column chart slide. 
  2. Delete the column chart. 
  3. From the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, select Chart. 
  4. From the Sunburst category select Sunburst. 
  5. Open the Excel file 'Map chart - sales by country.xlsx'.  
  6. Click in the data and press CTRL+A to select all.
  7. Press CTRL+C to copy the data. 
  8. Go back to the Excel window in PowerPoint. 
  9. Click in the first cell and press CTRL+V to paste the data. 
  10. The chart will update to reflect the new information. 

Insert a Map Chart

Map charts are ideal for displaying geographical data. Each part of the map is shaded on a gradient depending on the value it represents. 

  1. Press CTRL+D to duplicate the sunburst chart slide. 
  2. Delete the sunburst chart. 
  3. From the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, select Chart. 
  4. From the Map category select Filled Map. 
  5. Open the Excel file 'Map chart - sales by country.xlsx'.  
  6. Click in the data and press CTRL+A to select all.
  7. Press CTRL+C to copy the data. 
  8. Go back to the Excel window in PowerPoint. 
  9. Click in the first cell and press CTRL+V to paste the data. 
  10. The chart will update to reflect the new information. 

Hints & tips

  • Before creating a chart take some time to look at the data. Not all charts are created equally and some represent data better than others. Select the most appropriate chart. 
  • Each chart category contains many different chart types. 
  • Data can be pasted into the Excel window in PowerPoint from many different sources, not just Excel spreadsheets. 
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  • 00:04 Charts and
  • 00:04 graphs are a great way of visualising data in PowerPoint presentations.
  • 00:09 You might be used to doing something similar in an application like Excel.
  • 00:13 But it's worth knowing that you can harness your Excel data and
  • 00:17 build some really nice graphs and charts in PowerPoint as well.
  • 00:20 So maybe you want to show your company's sales over months or years, or
  • 00:25 maybe even global sales, or maybe you work in HR and
  • 00:28 you want to show a breakdown of the different teams in your company.
  • 00:33 All of these types of things can be done using PowerPoints comprehensive
  • 00:37 inbuilt charts.
  • 00:38 And if you take a look at my example, on the screen,
  • 00:41 I've created four different types of charts.
  • 00:45 We have a column chart on slide 17, which shows the total sales per category for
  • 00:50 the months of January, February and March.
  • 00:54 And I've also got a trend line going there for the webinars category.
  • 00:58 On slide 18,
  • 00:59 I have a doughnut chart which shows the quantity of products sold by country.
  • 01:05 And I've also added a link back to the original Excel file,
  • 01:09 which can be clicked on if anyone wants to take a look at the raw data.
  • 01:14 In slide 19, I visualized my figures in a slightly different way,
  • 01:18 this time using a map chart.
  • 01:21 And the countries are graded according to the amount of sales over quantity of
  • 01:25 sales.
  • 01:26 And then finally, I have two pie charts showing the percentage breakdown
  • 01:31 of males versus females for each of the different teams at my company.
  • 01:37 These are just a few examples of the type of charts that you can insert.
  • 01:40 So I'm going to show you how to create the first three, and
  • 01:43 then I'll leave you to have a little play around.
  • 01:46 So in this lesson, we're going to take a look at inserting charts and
  • 01:49 in the following lesson, I'm going to show you how you can format them and
  • 01:52 really make them stand out.
  • 01:53 So let's get started.
  • 01:55 So I've created a new slide, I've just duplicated that title slide and
  • 01:59 added a dark transparency.
  • 02:01 And I've made this almost opaque because I really want the chance to stand out
  • 02:05 without the background distracting away from them.
  • 02:09 So now I need to insert my first chart, which is going to be a column chart.
  • 02:14 So let's jump up to the insert Tab and in the illustrations group,
  • 02:17 you will see that you have an option there for chart.
  • 02:20 And this is going to open up the insert chart dialog box where we have a choice of
  • 02:25 lots and lots of different chart types.
  • 02:28 And they organized down into categories.
  • 02:30 So it really depends what kind of chart you want to use to display your data.
  • 02:35 And I will say that depending on your data,
  • 02:37 some chart types work better than others.
  • 02:40 You'll also notice that for each chart for example, this pie chart you have numerous
  • 02:44 different options when it comes to how that particular chart is going to display.
  • 02:49 Now we're going to start with a basic 2D clustered column chart,
  • 02:53 which is your standard regular chart.
  • 02:56 Let's select it and click on, OK.
  • 02:58 And what PowerPoint will do is it will insert basically a test chart.
  • 03:03 And it opens up a mini Excel windows so that you can modify this information or
  • 03:08 replace it with your own.
  • 03:10 So you could come up to this little mini spreadsheet and
  • 03:13 start editing these different cells with your own information.
  • 03:17 Alternatively, if you have it stored off in an external spreadsheet,
  • 03:21 then you can copy and paste which is exactly what I'm going to do here.
  • 03:25 So let's jump across to Excel.
  • 03:27 So this is the data that I want to display in my chart, I'm going to click
  • 03:32 within the data and press, Ctrl A to select all, and Ctrl C to copy.
  • 03:38 Let's go back to PowerPoint.
  • 03:39 And then all I need to do is, Ctrl V to paste my data in.
  • 03:43 And you'll see as soon as I do that the chart automatically updates with
  • 03:48 the data that I've added.
  • 03:50 I can then safely close down this little Excel window, and there is my chart.
  • 03:56 Now I'm just going to resize this to make it a little bit bigger.
  • 04:00 And you can probably tell already that we need to do some formatting to this chart
  • 04:04 to make it look a lot better than it currently does.
  • 04:07 So for example, the chart title, and
  • 04:09 all of the axis titles are kind of blending into the background.
  • 04:13 Now we're going to deal with formatting in the next lesson.
  • 04:17 So for the time being, let's move on to creating our next chart.
  • 04:21 So for this, I'm going to duplicate slide 17, Ctrl D.
  • 04:25 And just delete out a column chart because we're going to
  • 04:28 add a completely different one.
  • 04:30 So the next chart type that we're going to create is one of the newer charts in
  • 04:33 PowerPoint.
  • 04:34 And that is a sunburst chart.
  • 04:37 So backup to insert into chart and we're going to choose sunburst from our list.
  • 04:44 We only have one option in here.
  • 04:45 So let's click on, OK.
  • 04:48 And once again we get that little Excel spreadsheet open up which we can modify
  • 04:52 with our own data.
  • 04:54 Now this one is going to work slightly differently because you can see here in
  • 04:58 the data window we have four different columns.
  • 05:01 Now the data that I'm going to copy in only has two columns, so
  • 05:04 we need to do this slightly differently.
  • 05:07 So let's make this window a bit longer, so we can see all of the data.
  • 05:11 Let's jump across to Excel, grab our data and paste it in.
  • 05:15 So once again, click in the data, Ctrl A to select all and Ctrl C to copy.
  • 05:21 Now what I'm going to do here is I'm going to just do a, Ctrl V and
  • 05:25 paste it somewhere over here.
  • 05:27 Now looking at this data, as I said, I only have two columns,
  • 05:30 whereas this chart has four.
  • 05:32 So what I really want here is I want the regions and
  • 05:35 I'm going to Ctrl C to copy them where we have the branches at the moment.
  • 05:40 Ctrl V to paste.
  • 05:42 As you can see my chart updates as I go.
  • 05:45 Now, I don't really need columns B and C.
  • 05:47 So I'm going to right click and delete those out.
  • 05:50 And then I just need to paste in my quantities Ctrl C, Ctrl V.
  • 05:58 And then of course, you can take those headings across as well if you need to.
  • 06:03 So now that I've done that, I'm just going to delete those two columns out and
  • 06:06 click, Close.
  • 06:08 And this is now what my chart looks like,
  • 06:09 which is pretty much exactly what I wanted.
  • 06:12 Now once again, there are some formatting changes I need to make here, but
  • 06:15 we're going to do that in the next lesson.
  • 06:17 Let's move on to the final chart type that I'm going to show you and
  • 06:20 that is the map chart.
  • 06:22 So once again, Ctrl D to duplicate this slide.
  • 06:26 And I'm just going to delete out this chart.
  • 06:28 Now, map chat can look really effective.
  • 06:32 So let's go to insert back into chart and we want to choose map from this list.
  • 06:39 And basically, this is a filled map chart.
  • 06:42 So applies a gradient to the different countries depending on the value
  • 06:47 associated with that country.
  • 06:49 And you can see here in this example, the higher the value, the darker, the color.
  • 06:54 And of course, we can change these colors around, which again we're going to do in
  • 06:58 the next lesson when we start formatting these charts.
  • 07:01 But for the time being, let's just get some data in here.
  • 07:04 So let's move this window over.
  • 07:06 I'm going to drag this down again and we're going to copy and paste in our data.
  • 07:10 And you can see that the chart updates and I can click close.
  • 07:14 Once again I'm I want to widen this out just by using those resize handles.
  • 07:18 And of course, we need to make some obvious changes here because that chart
  • 07:22 title the legend is disappearing into the background.
  • 07:25 And I also want to make this chart a bit more colourful.
  • 07:28 So it's a bit easier to see.
  • 07:30 But that is basically the process of inserting charts.
  • 07:33 That's it for now.
  • 07:34 I will see you in the next video where we're going to be formatting these charts.

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