Editing Chart Data

Editing the data in our “Chart” is easy.  To do this, first select the “Chart” in your slide.
Click the “Edit Data” button in the “Design” contextual tab in the “Chart Tools”.

This opens the spreadsheet that contains the data that is included in our “Chart”.

Change the data and close the spreadsheet.

The changes are applied immediately to our “Chart”.

Perhaps at this moment, if you wish to remove information from a “Chart”, you do not need to open the “Chart” in “Excel” but, select the information in the “Chart” and click the “Delete” key on your keyboard.

 

Formatting and layout

We have a lot of options to change the formatting and layout of our “Chart”.
Some I will discuss here, but the rest you must try out for yourself.

 

To change the “Chart” type, you first select the “Chart” and choose the “Design” in the “Chart Tools” contextual tab.

Click the left most button in the “Ribbon” which is “Change Chart Type”.

This opens the dialog “Change Chart Type”.

Choose a different “Chart Type” and click the OK button.

 

To change the style we click the “Scroll down”, “Scroll up” or drop-down menu buttons in the “Ribbon” (1) and choose a style by clicking on it.

 

Then I add a “Chart Title”

I choose the “Layout” contextual tab in the “Ribbon” and click the “Chart Title”.

This opens a drop-down menu with three options: “None”, “Centered Overlayed Title” and “Above Chart”.

I choose the “Above Chart” option.

The first is obvious, the second one puts the title on the “Chart”.

Once you have made a choice, you can start typing.
You do not need to add it as text in a text box.

If you have typed the title click anywhere outside the title.

 

With the “Chart” still selected, you can optionally go and see how your title would look like if you had chosen the second option (“Centered Overlayed Title”) in the drop-down menu of the “Chart Title”. You can change this at any time if you wish.

 

Then you can adjust the titles of the horizontal and vertical axis. This could create confusion in the “Chart”.

Click on the “Axis Titles” button in the “Layout” contextual tab.

This opens a drop-down menu with two options.

One for the primary horizontal axis and one for the primary vertical axis.

The first gives us two more options: “None”, or “Title below Axis” both of which, are clear I think.

And the second gives us four options which happen to be clear.

 

Then I apply the “Legend”, by clicking the “Legend” in the “Layout” contextual tab.

When we clicked it, we have eight options.

The first seven seem clear to me, the eighth “More options for legend” opens a dialog where we have the settings for: “Legend Options”, “Fill”, “Border Color”, “Border Styles” and “Shadow”.

All these seem clear to me .

Click the “Close” button in the dialog box when you have finished your settings.

 

Then we have the “Data Labels” in the “Layout” contextual tab.

With this button, we can see the data from our table displayed in our “Chart”.

Again we have a few options that seem clear to me. Should this not be the case with you, you should try this all out.

 

Then we have the “Data Table” in the “Layout” contextual tab.

When we click on this we have three options. This places the table from the spreadsheet below the “Chart”.

 

Then we have the “Axes” button.
Again, I have two choices, the horizontal axis with seven options.
And the vertical axis with five options.
These seem to be clear.

 

Then we have the “Gridlines” which seem clear to me.

 

We also have the “Plot Area”.

When we click it we have three options, “None”, “Show Plot Area”, and “More options for Plot Area.” These seem clear to me.

 

And then we have the “Format” contextual tab.

Again, we have a whole bunch of options to format our “Chart”.  Far too many to mention.
Remember this, if you wish to change the layout of any part of your “Chart”, first select the part you wish to modify and then select the option you wish to apply.
If you do not like the change, then click the “Undo” button in the “Quick Access” toolbar, or click the Z key on your keyboard while holding the Ctrl key pressed.

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