Inserting Charts in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows

Follow these steps to insert a chart (or graph) within a slide in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows:

1. Create a new presentation in PowerPoint, or open an existing presentation.
2. Insert a new slide by choosing the Insert | New Slide option (Ctrl+M). This will also activate the Slide Layout Task Pane as shown in Figure 1. Within this Task Pane, select either the Content or Title and Content layout.
3. 
   Figure 1: PowerPoint Interface with blank layout
3. One of the six icons in the Content placeholder that you can see in the slide within Figure 1 above, is the Insert Chart icon. Click this icon to insert a new chart on your slide.
4. Alternatively, if you want to insert a chart in an existing slide that has no content placeholder, just choose the Insert | Chart option, as shown in Figure 2 below.
5. 
   Figure 2: Insert Chart
4. Either way, you'll end up with a column chart based on dummy data. You can thereafter change both the chart type and the dummy data on which the chart is based.
5. Both the chart and the datasheet that contains the dummy data can be seen in Figure 3.
Tip: Note that the menu bar in PowerPoint now has two new menu options: Data and Chart. This means that you are now in chart editing view. To come out of chart editing view, just click anywhere outside the chart area or datasheet.
6. 
   Figure 3: Chart with datasheet
5. If you have worked with Microsoft Excel, or another spreadsheet program, the datasheet will look familiar, as you can see in Figure 4.
6. 
   Figure 4: Datasheet
6. Change the dummy data values within the datasheet with your own values. Follow these guidelines:
1. Select a cell in the datasheet, and type in a new value.
2. You can move to the cell towards the right in the datasheet by pressing the Tab key. Or, move to the cell below by pressing the Enter(Return) key.
3. To insert a new column in the datasheet, right-click the header of the next column and choose the Insert option.
4. To insert a new row in the Excel sheet, right-click the header of the next row and choose the Insert option. Remember, column or row content inserted this way ends up as a new series value in your chart.
5. You can also delete columns and rows. Just select the row or column header, right-click, and choose the Delete option.
7. Once you change, add, or remove cell values, the corresponding column (or another element in a different chart type) will change. In our column chart example, shown in the Figure 5 the change of value in cell D1 made the corresponding column noticeably taller.
8. 
   Figure 5: Datasheet values
8. After inserting or changing the cell values in the datasheet, you can exit the work window by clicking anywhere outside the chart area or the datasheet. The datasheet and the border around the chart will disappear as shown in the Figure 6. You'll also no longer find the Data and Chart menu options in PowerPoint (refer to Figure 5). This means you are no longer in the chart editing view.
9. 
   Figure 6: Inserted Chart
9. To make any more changes to the chart, double-click it so that you can summon the chart editing view with the datasheet again.