Although charts are a visual medium, they still contain some text in the form of data labels, titles, legend, axis labels, etc. You may need to
format the chart text to suit your requirements. While PowerPoint 2011 makes it simpler to
access text formatting options than in previous PowerPoint versions, there's still some learning involved. That sort of learning is exactly what this
tutorial aims to provide. Follow these steps to learn more:
- First of all insert a chart on your slide. Then,
select the chart so that you can see the Chart Layout and Format tabs on the
Ribbon, as shown highlighted in red, within
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Chart selected
Note: The
Chart Layout and
Format tabs are
Contextual tabs. These tabs are
special tabs in the
Ribbon that are not visible all the time, they only
make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options.
- When you select the chart, the entire chart area gets selected. If you want to change the font or text attributes for a particular chart
element, you'll have to click on that element to select it. You can also
select any chart element using the
Current Selection box within either Chart Layout, or Format tab of the Ribbon. In Figure 2 you can see that the Horizontal (Category) Axis (the axis below the plot area) has been selected.
Figure 2: Horizontal (Category) Axis selected
- Now, you can change the font and text formatting of the text within this axis in any of these three ways:
- You can use the text formatting options within Formatting Toolbar that you can see in Figure 3
(highlighted in red). To learn more about the text formatting options within Formatting Toolbar, read
the tutorial Formatting Toolbar in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
Figure 3: Formatting Toolbar in PowerPoint 2011
- If you want to apply some styles and effects to the selected text, click on the Format tab (highlighted in
red within Figure 4) of the Ribbon. Within this tab, locate the
Text Styles group that you can see in Figure 4. This group includes Quick Styles gallery
(highlighted in blue, within Figure 4) that provides you with some ready-made WordArt styles for the
selected text. To learn more about how to apply these ready-made WordArt styles, refer to our
WordArt Styles (Quick Styles) in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
tutorial.
Figure 4: Text formatting options within the Text Styles group of the Format tab
- You can also summon the Format Text dialog box which includes all possible text formatting options. To do
that, first right-click (Ctrl+click) on the selection and from the contextual menu that appears, select the
Format Text option as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Format Text option selected
Alternatively, you can choose Format | Font menu option. Both the ways will bring up the
Format Text dialog box that you can see in Figure 6 which includes almost all possible text editing options such as
changing the font, text fill, text line, effects etc.
Figure 6: Format Text dialog box
- Make any change to the font and text formatting as required. Figure 7 shows the selected
Horizontal Category Axis after changing some text attributes. Compare Figures 7 and 1.
Figure 7: Selected Chart text formatted
- Save your presentation.
See Also:
Changing Fonts and Other Text Options for Charts in
PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Changing Fonts and Other Text Options for Charts in
PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
Changing Fonts and Other Text Options for Charts in PowerPoint
2007 for Windows
Changing Fonts and Other Text Options for Charts in PowerPoint
2002 and 2003 for Windows
