Changing Fonts and Other Text Options for Charts in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows

Although charts are a visual medium, they still contain plenty of text in the form of data labels, titles, legend, axis labels, etc. And while PowerPoint 2007 does make 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 change font and other text options for charts in PowerPoint 2007:

If you don't have a chart on your slide, learn how to insert one in PowerPoint 2007. Then, select the chart as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Select the chart
When you select the chart, you'll find that the entire chart area gets selected. If you want to change options for a particular chart element, you'll have to click on that element to select it. Alternatively, you can select any chart element from the Chart Tools Layout tab of the Ribbon. Now click on the Horizontal Category Axis (the horizontal line at the bottom of the plot area), as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Horizontal Category Axis
Now choose any of these three options to change font and text formatting:
1. Access the Home tab of the Ribbon and choose any of the options in the Font group, as shown in Figure 3.
  
  Figure 3: Font
2. Access the Font dialog box. Some of the options in the Font group above are not there in the Font dialog box, primarily, the option to add shadow to the text.
3. Finally, you can select any text and right click to bring up the mini toolbar. Most of these options can be found in both the Font group and in the Font dialog box.
Make any changes to the font and text formatting as required.
Save your presentation.