Adding and Editing Charts

Quick reference

• 00:03 This is one of two videos looking at charting in PowerPoint and specifically, inserting charts, the various chart types, as well as some basic
• 00:11 formatting functions. The other video looks at inserting chart elements and the kind of chart elements that are important for good charting.
• 00:18 So let’s begin by going to slide two. Inserting a chart is as simple as the insert tab on the ribbon, and click the chart button within the
• 00:27 illustrations group, or within this content placeholder, and placeholders are the subject of another video, click on the insert chart icon and
• 00:35 the insert chart dialog box pops up with various chart types, as well as icons that show the various chart variants. So let’s have a look at the
• 00:44 chart types. A column chart is very good when there is a relationship between the data and the categories. A line chart is for time series or
• 00:54 continuous data, such as temperature or even stock market fluctuations. In a pie chart, the data adds up to 100% so it’s the comparison
• 01:03 that’s important and not so much the numbers themselves, and you can only use then when you’ve got a single series or category of data. A
• 01:11 bar chart is quite often confused with a column chart and it’s where there is no direct relationship between the categories. In an area
• 01:19 chart, it’s the sum of plotted values that's important to compare and an x/y scatter chart which I use quite frequently in science, is where
• 01:27 there is values on two axes, such as humidity compared to a set temperature. So let’s go to the column chart area, notice the different
• 01:36 variants, so this is a clustered column versus a stacked column, and notice as I move my mouse over the icons I get a little window callout
• 01:45 to say what that is and that’s where the data is actually stacked, versus stacked up to 100%. So let’s select a clustered column, click ok, and
• 01:56 Microsoft Excel loads the actual application itself where we can work on the data, as well as the chart. Now the data in this spreadsheet is
• 02:05 dynamically linked so as I change data here, and it’s very important that we do because this is really dummy data and we need to put our
• 02:12 own stuff in there, but the chart will update, so let’s start doing some editing. I’m going to add some cities here, so Brisbane, Canberra,
• 02:25 Sydney. Now notice that I’ve spelt that wrong already so same as in Excel, double click, select the text with my mouse, capital S-dney. I
• 02:37 can press ENTER or TAB and I’m going to change these such as temp. which is short for temperature so I need a full stop, humidity, and
• 02:47 that stands for solar radiation. Now again I can also edit in the formula bar up here, BACKSPACE capital T, TAB, as well as a
• 02:58 capital R that represents solar radiation. And we can see that the chart has updated in the background; I haven’t changed this category but
• 03:06 that’s reflected in this chart. Now notice immediately this little blue bounding box and that is the boundary of the data, so we can take
• 03:16 a clue from this information here. To resize the chart data range, drag the lower right-hand corner of the range, so if I click and drag up, it
• 03:25 deletes that category and it’s gone from the chart. If I click and drag to the left, it deletes that series, and so if I move it to there, that is what I
• 03:38 want to represent in that chart. So I close the Excel application down and there is our chart within PowerPoint, very simple. Now we’re going
• 03:46 to look at some basic tabs that come in our chart tools area on the ribbon with that chart selected. So we can change the chart type,
• 03:55 which pops us back into a similar dialog box although it’s a changed chart type, and select a different chart. We can save that as a template
• 04:02 as we wish. Notice that the switch row column is not available because we’re not actually editing the data in that data sheet. So we can
• 04:11 edit the data or select the data if we click on any of those buttons, the application will pop up, which is the same as: right click, and edit data.
• 04:20 And we go back into the actual sheet itself. Now these chart layouts are very handy. They are kind of prepopulated charts that we can use to
• 04:29 quickly change our charts so if I drop the little drop down arrow, immediately I click on that and I get a different kind of chart layout, or that one,
• 04:39 notice that it has a table already added the bottom, or back to this particular style, which actually has series data labels. So that’s very
• 04:47 handy. Notice also the charts styles, which are about formatting the series and the categories. So, for example, we can see that this particular
• 04:56 chart style is already selected style 2, or I can select that one, drop the little arrow down, and choose from a range of different chart styles. A
• 05:07 very quick way of formatting the chart, and having, all of the colors balance and work together. If we look quickly at the layout tab, this
• 05:16 is the subject of the other video where we add all these chart elements such as a legend, and title and various axis titles. We’ll quickly look at the
• 05:25 format tab; this is actually about formatting chart elements, or chart objects. And so, for example, I have this series selected. I can click on shape
• 05:35 fill and change that to yellow, but if you do that you must remember that these colors need to work together and balance so you have to know
• 05:43 what you’re doing. Or I can select again, to select that particular column, and choose a red fill and that really stands out. Now if you do that
• 05:54 you need to explain on the slide or when you’re presenting why you’ve actually done that because it does stand out different to everything
• 06:01 else. So let’s very quickly look at a particular type of chart, and this is called a three dimensional chart, so if I right click and go edit
• 06:09 data, a three dimensional chart is really about X data, which is on one axis, Y data, and Z data is what gives it depth. But notice that this data is
• 06:21 exactly the same as in our two dimensional chart so in this case, this chart is not appropriate, because even though there is X
• 06:29 data and Y data, there is no Z data that gives that actual depth, and so if you’re going to use a three dimensional chart your data must support
• 06:38 that. So inserting charts into PowerPoint is very simple. On the insert tab of the ribbon we have the chart button or you can use the insert button
• 06:48 within a content placeholder. With the chart selected, you can select the data, you can edit the data, you can switch between row and
• 06:57 column, and certainly try that in your own time. Various chart layouts, chart styles, and these depend on the theme that you have applied to
• 07:05 your presentation. Layouts is the subject of another video and formatting of various chart objects. It’s well worth your time understanding
• 07:13 and working with charts because they’re a powerful way of presenting your information within PowerPoint.

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