A well-drawn chart turns columns of numbers into something that can be more
easily read and understood. Using charts in a PowerPoint presentation makes it
easier for your audience to draw inferences from your data, which can help them
to better understand the concepts you are presenting. PowerPoint 2007 has
several new tools for working with charts that can help you create professional,
eye-catching charts for any presentation.
You have two options when
placing a chart in PowerPoint presentation. One is to bring data in from another
source such as an Excel worksheet and the other is to create the data inside
PowerPoint itself.
»
Copying a
Chart from Excel 
To bring data in from an
external Excel worksheet, open the Excel worksheet with the chart visible on the
screen. Click the chart to select it, and from the Home tab choose Copy and
switch to PowerPoint. Add a new slide, right click in the placeholder on the
slide and choose Paste. This pastes the chart inside the placeholder as a linked
chart — note that it will alter if the data in the original workbook changes.
You can access the original data by clicking on the chart inside PowerPoint
to select it and from the Chart Tools > Design tab, select Edit Data.
When you do this, Excel opens with the worksheet in place on the screen. Change
the data and save the worksheet and the corresponding chart in your PowerPoint
presentation will change accordingly. If the data does not change, from inside
PowerPoint click the chart and choose Chart Tools > Design tab >
Refresh Data.
When you paste a copied chart, the
formatting of the chart will be determined by the theme and colors you have
configured in PowerPoint for your slide.
»
Create
Data in PowerPoint
Your other option for
placing a chart on a PowerPoint slide is to add the chart to the slide by
creating it from inside PowerPoint. To do this, add a new slide and choose a
layout that has place for a chart on it — Content with Caption is one of
these. Inside the content area is an Insert Chart button — click this to
insert a chart into the slide.
From the Insert Chart dialog, select the type of chart to add and click on a
chart type to use. When selecting a chart type, those on the left of the dialog
are the simplest styles and typically the easiest to understand. Avoid complex
charts like 100% stacked charts unless your audience is knowledgeable enough to
understand these. Click OK.
Microsoft Excel 2007 now opens with some sample data already in place in the
worksheet. Replace this data with the data that you want to plot in the chart.
Once you have entered your data, adjust the blue border to surround all the
data. Add more columns and rows if desired or remove columns and rows if you
have less data.
When you
’
re done, click the
Close button to close the Excel window and return to PowerPoint. The Chart Tools
tab on the Ribbon includes Design, Layout, and Format tabs, which provide
formatting and other options for your chart.
On the Design tab is the Chart Styles Gallery from which you can select a
style for your chart. The options available and the overall look of the chart
will vary according to the Style you choose, the Theme you’re using, and options
such as Effects you have applied.
If you go now and change the Theme or the Colors and then return to the
Chart Tools > Design tab you will notice that the styles will have
changed too. From the Chart Layouts dropdown list on the Design tab, you can
view different possible layouts for your chart — selecting Layout 5 for a column
chart, for example, adds a data table to the chart.