Since you’re going to be working on your chart’s appearance, give yourself a nice big view. If PowerPoint isn’t maximized on your computer screen, click the Maximize button in the upper-right corner of the window to maximize it. Then follow these steps:

The Chart Style schemes that come with PowerPoint give you a quick way to choose the color of your chart’s data elements, as well as your chart’s background. Because all of the colors in the Chart Style schemes are professionally designed to coordinate with each other, your chart looks good no matter which one you choose—and no matter how many data elements you’re charting.

To apply a Chart Style:

If you customize nothing else about your chart, you need to customize your title. That’s because even though every chart needs a title, PowerPoint doesn’t automatically assign one. You’ll want to decide where to display your title, too.

Figure 22-9.  The Chart Styles gallery gives you a super-easy way to apply an attractive color scheme (including background colors and gradients) to your chart—here, a line chart. You can tweak the colors if you like, of course (see Changing Text Color and Background Color).

Oddly, when you create a diagram, PowerPoint doesn’t start you out with a title placeholder. Instead, you have to insert and position your own text box, which you can see how to do on Adding a New Text Box. (If you’ve added your diagram to a slide that already contains a title, of course, you don’t have to insert a new one.)

If you like, you can experiment with different diagram types to find one that presents your information in the most effective way possible. For example, if you’ve created a Basic Chevron diagram, you might find that switching to a Closed Chevron diagram demonstrates your conceptual point more effectively.

Just make sure the diagram you switch to fits your particular data. For example, a Multidirectional Cycle diagram implies a two-way relationship between diagram elements, while a Continuous Cycle implies a one-way repeating relationship. Because these two different types of diagrams communicate two very different messages, they’re not interchangeable.

To switch to another diagram type:

As your practice and hone your presentation, you’ll probably find you need to change the text that appears in one or more diagram shapes. You can edit diagram text simply by clicking the text and typing, just as you edit the text in any text box—but there’s an easier way. Displaying the diagram text edit pane (Figure 22-18) lets you see and edit all of the text in your diagram easily, without having to click from shape to shape.

To edit diagram text using the diagram text edit pane:

To create a table, you start by telling PowerPoint how many rows and columns you want your table to have. PowerPoint gives you a gloriously easy way to do so— mousing over a grid to define the size and shape of your table.

Here’s how:

Figure 22-20.  Behold the basic table, complete with a header row (the darker-colored row) across the top. Unless you tell it different, PowerPoint lightly tints, or bands, every other row to make it easier for your audience to read your table. You see how to change both of these formatting effects starting on Tweaking Tables.

Figure 22-21. To add a table to a slide, select Insert → Tables → Table → Insert Table. The Insert Table dialog box also pops up when you’re working on a slide to which you’ve applied a content layout, and you click the table icon displayed in the center of the slide.

Before you can add data to a cell or format a cell, row, or column, you first have to select that cell, row, or column. To select a cell, simply click in the cell. To select multiple cells, click in one cell, and then drag your cursor to select additional cells. PowerPoint highlights cells as you mouse over them to let you know which cells you’re selecting.

To select a column or a row:

PowerPoint makes a distinction between selecting all the cells in a table, and selecting the table itself. You select all the rows and columns in a table if you want to delete or format the contents of all the cells. You select the table itself if you want to resize, reposition, or delete the table, or if you want to change the font of your table text by applying a table style (see Tweaking Tables).

The previous section shows you how to select all the cells in a table. To select the table itself, click any cell in table you want to select. Then choose Table Tools | Layout → Table → Select → Select Table. You can also drag your cursor around your table to select it. (Or, if you prefer, right-click any cell in your table and then, from the context menu that appears, choose Select Table.)

Whichever way you go about it way, after you successfully select a table, Power-Point highlights the table frame and turns your cursor into a four-headed arrow.

After you’ve added a table to your slide, you need to fill the cells with data. To do so, click in any cell and begin typing. To move to the next cell, press Tab or click in the next cell.

PowerPoint doesn’t offer you any special way to add a title to your table. Instead, you simply add a text box, type in the title text you want, and then position the text box over your table. Chapter 17 shows you how to add and position text boxes.

You add a column heading the same way that you add any other bit of data to a table cell—by clicking in the cell and then typing. But because most folks want to draw special attention to column headings, PowerPoint gives you a quick way to highlight them.

Here’s how it works. When you create a table, PowerPoint highlights the first row (Figure 22-22) for you. But if the first row of your table doesn’t appear high-lighted—perhaps your co-workers has been fiddling with your presentation file— you can recover the highlighted effect by going to Table Tools → Design → Table Style Options and, in the Table Style Options group, turning on the Header checkbox.

PowerPoint tints the first row of your table an attractive color based on your table’s style. It also automatically switches the color of the text in the first row to a contrasting color. See Figure 22-22 for an example. (Want to change these row highlights? See the next page.)

The basic table you create in PowerPoint is just that—basic. To spice it up with a predefined collection of formatting effects including color, shading, and borders:

Say you’re showing your boss or your teacher an important table. You know she’s going to have only a few minutes to examine it, so to emphasize the important numbers, you take a yellow pen and highlight them. PowerPoint lets you do something similar in the tables you add to your slides: you can highlight specific columns or rows (such as the totals row) or tell PowerPoint to lightly tint every other column or row for readability.

If you’ve had a chance to check out Figure 22-22, you’ve already seen how Power-Point applies header rows and banded rows to your table. In addition to tinting the first row of your table and lightly tinting every other row, you can tell PowerPoint to add a totals row, highlight the data in the first or last column, or band columns (instead of rows). Here’s how:

You can choose from the following:

PowerPoint redisplays your table based on your choice. Figure 22-24 shows you an example.

Figure 22-24. Turning on Total Row tells PowerPoint to add a thicker line, and bold the data and color the background in the last row of the table.

You’ve typed in twenty cells’ worth of data when you realize you accidentally skipped a row. No sweat: simply insert a new blank row and type the skipped numbers.

To insert a row or a column, right-click one of the cells in your table and then, from the context menu that appears, choose Insert → Insert Above or Insert → Insert Below (to insert a row to the above or below your currently selected cell, respectively) or Insert → Insert Left or Insert → Insert Right (to insert a column to the left or right of your currently selected cell, respectively).

To delete a row or column, right-click any cell in the row or column you want to delete and then, from the context menu that appears, choose Delete Rows or Delete Columns. To delete multiple rows or columns, select them first; then right-click.

Each table that you create begins with standard, consistently sized rows and columns. But depending on the content that you add to your cells, you may want to increase or decrease the width of a row or column. For example, if you type a column heading wider than the column width, PowerPoint assumes you want to break it up into two lines. If you don’t agree, you can widen the column.

To adjust the width of a row or column:

Unless you tell it otherwise, PowerPoint assumes you want the text and numbers you type into your table cells to be top-and left-aligned. But you’re free to change that to anything else you like. For example, text often looks nice when centered. Numbers are usually easier to read when right aligned.

Because most folks find vertical alignment options (top, center, and bottom) most useful, those are the options easiest to get to. But by using the Cell Text Layout dialog box described below, you can align your data eight ways to Sunday.

To realign data:

To align the text in your data cells horizontally, follow the same steps, but adjust the internal left and right margins.

Depending on the data you’re trying to present, you may want to merge cells (erase the border between cells) or split cells (add a border between cells). Merging cells is especially useful for creating a heading inside your table, as shown in Figure 22-26 (top). You want to consider splitting cells when you find yourself cramming more than one or two words, phrases, or sentences in a single cell (Figure 22-26, bottom).

To merge a cell, select the cells you want to merge and click Table Tools | Layout → Merge → Merge Cells. You can also right-click a selection and choose Merge Cells.

To split a cell, select the cell you want to split and then click Table Tools | Layout → Merge → Split Cells (or right-click the selected cell and choose Split Cells). In the Split Cells dialog box that appears, type in the number of columns and number of rows you want your newly split cell to have. When you finish, click OK.

Figure 22-26.  Top: The text in this table is okay, but its placement isn’t particularly stellar. Bottom: Here you see the same table, with two minor adjustments: the two cells in the top row were merged, and the two cells in the right column were each split. The result (after a bit of the cell alignment magic described on Aligning data inside cells) is attractive and professional looking.