Yes, you insert a chart on your slide, and then you
spend an hour slaving over this chart to get it just perfect! You really do not want to spend a few more hours creating more charts just like the one
you created. It's only fair to have to do this task once --and then easily replicate your chart formatting thereafter for any new charts you may want
to create. You can actually attain this objective by saving your chart's formatting attributes as a chart template. Saving a chart template saves
all the tweaks and formatting you made -- thereafter you can use the chart template as a starting point to create a new chart. And you can make
multiple chart templates and save them to use later -- follow these steps to learn more:
- Select the chart that you want to save as a template, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Formatted chart selected
- With the chart still selected, access the Charts tab of the
Ribbon that you can see highlighted in red
within Figure 2 -- and then click the Other button (highlighted in blue within
Figure 2).
Figure 2: Other button within the Charts tab of the Ribbon
- This opens the Other charts gallery as you can see in Figure 3. In this gallery, select
Save as Template, which is the last option (see Figure 3 again).
Figure 3: Other Charts gallery
Alternatively, you can just right-click (Ctrl+click) the selected chart, and from the resultant menu, select the
Save as Template option as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Save as Chart Template option is selected
- This brings up the Save Chart Template dialog box (see Figure 5) -- note that you should not change the folder
location if you want to use this template on the same computer where it was created. Give your template a name as shown highlighted in
red within Figure 5, and save it by clicking the Save button (highlighted in
blue within Figure 5).
Figure 5: Save Chart Template dialog box
Tip: It is a good idea to give a nice, descriptive name that you can remember later -- the default name given by PowerPoint
My Chart.crtx may mean nothing to you next week, but something like Primary Colors Column Chart.crtx may make so
much more sense! Note that the extension crtx is automatically suffixed to the file name you choose -- crtx is the
chart template format that PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office applications use.
- Hereafter, when you want to use this template as a starting point for a new chart, access the Charts tab of the
Ribbon, and click the Other button. This opens the Other charts gallery as shown in
Figure 6. Within the Other charts gallery you will see a new category named Templates
(highlighted in red within Figure 6) -- this category includes all of the chart templates you have
saved. Click on the chart template of your choice -- PowerPoint will create a new chart based on the selected template.
Figure 6: New Chart Template within the Other Charts gallery
- Save your presentation often.
See Also:
Saving Chart Templates in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Saving Chart Templates in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
