Learn about the Tick Marks, both Major and Minor on chart axes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
OS: Mac OS X
Charts are a visual representation of data, and when seen on a PowerPoint slide from afar, you make out the value of a series by exploring where exactly it's placed vis-à-vis the axis. Of course, if your chart has data labels, then this is less of an issue -- however, typical charts such as the one shown in Figure 1, below have no data labels. For such a chart, you'll notice that the column representing Grapes in 2009 is a little taller than the value 4 in the adjacent axis. It's also just a little higher than 4 here -- indicating a rough value of around 4.25. We're still not sure -- and the Tick Marks placed on the axis will help us get a better idea.
Figure 1: Major and Minor Tick marks on chart axes
A few tick marks have been highlighted in red and blue within Figure 1 above -- we chose two colors to highlight these tick marks because most chart types show two types of tick marks on axes -- Major (highlighted in red) and Minor (highlighted in blue).
Major tick marks are indications on an axis that show up:
Both are shown in Figure 1, above (highlighted in red).
Minor tick marks are those tick marks that appear between the Major tick marks on an axis -- typically PowerPoint charts do not display Minor tick marks, but we enabled them in the chart shown in Figure 1 (highlighted in blue). Minor tick marks help users measure the distance between the Major tick marks.
If you look at this picture of a ruler (picture sourced from Office.com
), you'll recollect that both Major and Minor tick marks have been available in all types of rulers we have used -- even the rulers used in primary
school.
In this tutorial we will learn how to show/hide these tick marks and also where you display these Major and Minor tick marks:
Figure 5 shows all types of the Major tick marks on Value Axis when we selected the None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.
Figure 5: Types of Major Tick marks on Value axis from left to right (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)
Figure 6 shows the types of the Minor tick marks on Value Axis when we selected
None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.
Figure 6: Types of Minor Tick marks on Value axis from left to right (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)
Figure 7 shows the types of the Major tick marks on Category Axis when we selected None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.
Figure 7: Types of Major Tick marks on Category axis from top to bottom (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)
Figure 8 shows the types of the Minor tick marks on Category Axis when we selected None, Outside, Inside, and Cross options.
Figure 8: Types of Minor Tick marks on Category axis from top to bottom (None, Outside, Inside, and Cross)
See Also:
Tick Marks on Chart Axes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Tick Marks on Chart Axes in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
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