CHAPTER 25

GRAPHING WITH POWERPOINT

While you may think of Powerpoint as a tool for making presentations, it can be used to create graphs as
well. The following are instructions for creating the graph that appears below:
1.

Begin by opening Powerpoint. Then choose "Create a new presentation using Blank
Presentation. In the New Slide dialog box, you can choose the default AutoLayout.

2.

Select the graphing icon from the standard toolbar.

3.

A prototype graph and spreadsheet will appear. You will find that there are many similarities
between Excel and Powerpoint.

4.

To create the graph, begin by editing the spreadsheet. Enter the labels for the five bars in the first
row of the spreadsheet beginning with Column A for "Strongly Agree."

5.

In the next row, enter the percentages for the five bars beginning with 16.0 in Column A (the five
values are 16.0, 54.3, 21.8 7.4 and 0.5 for Strongly Agree, Agree, Unsure, Disagree and Strongly
Disagree, respectively). Delete the data in the remaining cells (the initial data in rows three and
four inserted by Powerpoint for the prototype graph).

6.

Notice that the value 16.0 does not show the decimal. You must highlight the cell containing 16.0
and click on FORMAT NUMBER. Click on the Category "Number" and change the number of
decimal places to one. Then click on "OK."

7.

You are now ready to edit the graph itself. Move the spreadsheet out of the way so that you can
see the entire graph.

8.

Right click on the legend and select clear to remove the legend from the graph.

9.

To change from a 3-D bar to a flat bar, first click on one of the bars in the graph. Next, click on the
CHART pulldown menu. Next, click on CHART TYPE and choose the first selection, Column, and
then click on "OK."

10.

Next, we will change the font and font size for the bar labels and for the vertical axis (Y). Double
click on one of the bar labels. A Format Axis dialog box will open. Click on Font and choose Arial
and font size 12. Then click on "OK." Next, click on one of the numbers in the vertical (Y) axis
(e.g., 40.0). A Format Axis dialog box will open. Again change the font to Arial and change the font
size to 14. Remove the decimal place: double click on the percentages on the Y axis, click on
NUMBER, and change the decimals places to zero (0).

11.

To add the values within each bar, double click on one of the bars. The Format Data Series dialog
box will open. Click on Data Labels. Then choose "show value" and click on "OK."

12.

To be consistent, we will change the font and font size of the values appearing above each bar.
Double click on one of the values. The Format Data Labels dialog box will open. Again, select
Arial and set the font size to 12.

13.

The individual bars are too narrow. To widen the bars, double click on one. Format Data Series
dialog box will open. Click on Options. Change the Overlap to 100 and the "gap width" to 60.
Click on "OK."

14.

To remove the horizontal gridlines, click on CHART CHART OPTIONS. Click on "gridlines" and
remove the Y axis major gridlines (click to remove the checkmark).

15.

The last step is to move the data labels into the bars. Before doing this, we want to set the labels
against a white background. Double click on one of the values (e.g., 54.3). Under "patterns", click
on "shadow." Click on "OK." Next, one-by-one, slide the data labels into the bars.

16.

Create a title above the graph. Click on the text box icon on the toolbar near the bottom of the
screen (Note: If you chose a presentation format that already has a text box for the title, ignore
this step.) Create a text box above the graph. Type in the title. Change the font and size to Arial
18. Alternatively, a title can be created in Word.

17.

Double click on one of the bars and change the color of the bars to red.

18.

You are now ready to copy and paste the graph into a document.

19.

Use Chart Type (under the Chart pulldown menu) to work with other types of graphs.

Media focus too much attention on the

horse race in presidential campaigns
60
54.3

50
40
30
20

21.8
16.0

10

7.4

0.5

Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

0
Strongly
Agree

Agree

Unsure

Exercise 11
Create two graphs. Each graph should portray a different variable or variables. Each graph should use a
different program (SPSSWIN, Excel, or Powerpoint). Edit the graphs to make them report ready. Be
sure they have titles and are self-explanatory. Also, note somewhere on the page which program was
used to create the graph.
E-mail the graphs as an attachment to your instructor. Be sure "Exercise 11" appears in the subject line
of the email.