Two important slide templates are Data Chart and Combination. The Data Chart template has a title and subtitle area with a chart area that nearly fills up the slide. The Combination slide has a bullet text area to the left side of the chart. The more complex the data chart, the more likely you would need to use the "full size" chart for your audience to read the chart.

Starting a Bar Chart

You must create data charts in the Slide Editor View. When you double-click on the Chart "placeholder", a Data Chart Gallery dialog box appears for you to select the type of chart. There are 12 options in the Data Chart Gallery window, and picking one shows samples for that type of chart. There is also a box for 3-D. Selecting or deselecting the 3-D box toggles between a 3-Dimensional and 2-Dimensional style image. There is also a box for having sample data. If you are not familiar with the chart type and how data needs to be entered, you should leave the sample data checked so you can see how to enter data.

When you click OK the next screen shows sample data in a datasheet area and its resulting chart. You will notice that part of the Property Bar and the normal Toolbar disappear, and a special Toolbar appears. This datasheet area is similar to working in tables in WordPerfect, or in a spreadsheet program. You can highlight the current data in the datasheet and press <Delete> to clear the data, or with the insertion point in any cell in the datasheet, click on EDIT, Clear All to clear all cells quickly. In both cases, you are asked for confirmation of the deletion. The datasheet will be blank and the resulting chart will disappear, since there is no data to create the chart.

You can enter text labels and numbers in the datasheet as you would in a table or spreadsheet. Use the arrow keys to move around. Once the data is entered, you can close the display of the datasheet by clicking on VIEW, then deselecting Datasheet. To bring up the datasheet area again, to correct or change data, click on VIEW, then select Datasheet.

Exercise 7

In order for you to practice creating a chart for your slide set, we will assume you have conducted a survey of users in your organization, finding out what type of images they use in their newsletters now versus what they were using five years ago.

Use Slide Editor View and move to Slide 11 on "Graphic accents." Click the [Insert slide]  button and select a Data Chart type of slide. For the title of the slide type in: Types of images used.. Skip the subtitle.

Double-click on the chart placeholder and pick the option of a Bar (Horz) and then select the example in the top row, left side. Be sure to ask for sample data and uncheck the 3-D option.

Take a look at the resulting datasheet that appears and how the data is entered. Notice there is a column for legend labels and a row for labels (text to explain the X-axis).

Click on EDIT, Clear All and clear the current data. Type in this information:

As you type in data, you can see the resulting chart being created. As you type "Illustrations," you see that the column is not wide enough, but the entire text item appears on the chart. You can drag the vertical line between columns in the header area (where the column letters appears) to make the column wider.

When you are through entering data, click on VIEW, Datasheet and close this window or close it by clicking the [Close] button.

Notice that the Toolbar is not the one that appears in the normal Slide Editor View. Also some of the Property Bar items have changed.

To complete the chart and return to the Slide Editor View, click once on a part of the slide outside the chart area, like beneath the title. The charting Toolbar disappears and the regular Toolbar appears again.

Save this version of "newsletter tips." There are now 12 slides in your set.

With the chart slide showing and using Slide Editor, change the template to Combination by using the Select Layout button on the  Property Bar. What do you think of this slide as compared to the Data Chart template? Change the template back to Data Chart.

Creating a Pie Chart

A pie chart is commonly used to show the percent of the total for each item in a group. Begin a pie by selecting this chart type from the data chart gallery. You can turn on and off the 3-D aspect. A pie chart does not really need a legend, but it does need labels for the pie wedges.

Exercise 8

Move to Slide 4 on "What is a grid?" Use Slide Editor View and add a new slide using Insert, New Slide on the Menu bar. Select a Data Chart.

Double-click on the title placeholder and make the title: Grid styles used.

Double-click on the data chart placeholder. From the gallery that appears, pick a pie, and then select the second pie sample in the first row, in which the wedge labels appear outside the wedges. Turn off 3-D but leave the sample data.

When the datasheet appears, note how the data is entered, and then use EDIT, Clear All to delete the sample data. Enter this information showing a survey of what types of grids are used by your unit's newsletters:

Close the datasheet. Click on one of the pie wedges, and right-click to bring up the QuickMenu. Pick Display Data Labels. The resulting dialog box on "Data Labels (Pie)" lets you change settings for the value (initially none), for the percent (initially none), for the label (initially outside) and for the leader (initially none). To have the program display the percentage for each wedge, change that button to be either outside (the wedge) or inside (the wedge). Click [OK] to close the dialog box and examine the results.

Click on the slide away from the chart area to exit the charting program and return to regular Presentations.

Save this version of "newsletter tips." You now have 13 slides in the set.

Editing an Existing Chart

After creating a chart, you may need to modify the data, change the chart type, or make some adjustments to the chart's appearance. Use the Slide Editor View, and find the slide with the chart you want to change. Click once on the chart area of the slide, then double-click to get back into the chart-creation program. The Toolbar and Property Bar will change to reflect the button commands used to modify data charts.

You can change the chart type by clicking on Chart, Gallery. Keep in mind, however, that some data charts require a particular layout for their data; for example, you could not create a bar chart and then pick Hi-Low without re-entering data into the Datasheet, since these charts use different data layouts.

Each of the elements of the chart can be changed. For example, on a line or bar chart, you can click on the legend and drag it to another location. You can click on the Y-axis and then right-click on it once it has been selected. Options in the resulting dialog box affect minimum and maximum numbers on the axis and size of fonts, among other things.

Exercise 9

Use FILE, Save As and save this slide set under the name of "practice graphics" before you experiment with some of the settings. Select the chart area on Slide 13, and then double-click on it to get into the charting program. Click on the "Chart" menu, select "Gallery" and change the chart to a vertical bar or line. Click on the legend and drag it inside the chart area. Click on the Y-axis and then right-click. Pick "Primary Y Axis Properties". Click the "Scale/Labels" Tab and change the maximum value to 40. Save this version of "practice graphics."

Learning Corel Presentations 8.0