Anyone who’s used Excel will know it’s a powerful tool full of nifty features. Besides allowing you to crunch large numbers, store information and clean up large swathes of data, Excel also allows you to show information in a clear, helpful way. This can be incredibly valuable when preparing presentations.
Excel has so many hidden features under the surface. This might seem intimidating at first, but it’s actually not too difficult to learn the basics of using the data for presentations in a relatively short amount of time. If you’re looking to leverage Excel to take your presentations to the next level, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn five key tips for effectively using Excel data and graphs in a presentation.
Among the top uses of Excel is that it allows you to transform large volumes of data into simple, easily digestible formats. This includes information taken from external sources: thanks to PDF to Excel conversion tools, it’s now easier than ever to import data into an Excel file and work with it. This is an invaluable feature if you’re looking to incorporate this data into a PowerPoint.
When making a presentation, your top priority should be to get your points across to your listeners. Simply bombarding them with numbers won’t cut it. Many Excel features allow you to transform raw data into useful information, and it’s impossible to explore them all within a single article. However, one you’ll definitely want to familiarise yourself with is the Pivot Table, which automatically simplifies the content on a page into an easily readable table. Another useful feature is conditional formatting, which removes irrelevant information and presents only the data you need.
Excel also allows you to create a variety of graphs and charts, which we’ll explore in greater depth in the next section.
When making presentations, it’s essential to show data in an appropriate visual format to get your point across. Thankfully, Excel allows you to create a wide variety of charts and graphs depending on your needs. This means you can simply input the raw data, and Excel can convert it into a visual format that fits your needs.
The type of graph or chart you build will depend on the situation. For instance, if you want to demonstrate change over time, a line graph would probably be the option to present. On the other hand, a pie chart is an excellent choice when it comes to presenting the results of a survey.
Once you’ve created these visuals, you can then incorporate them into your presentations. In the next section, we’ll explore how.
Once you’ve organised your data, the next step is to incorporate it into your PowerPoint presentations. Many people who are just starting to get their feet wet with Excel think that it’s necessary to completely recreate tables, graphs and charts in their presentation software. However, this isn’t always the most efficient method.
It’s much easier to simply copy these data sections of graphs of an Excel document and paste them directly into Microsoft PowerPoint. To insert segments of an Excel doc into a PowerPoint presentation, you need to use the ‘Paste Special’ option and paste the data in question as a ‘Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object.’
Another method of importing Excel data into a presentation is to:
Note that this method only works if you want to import an entire Excel document into a PowerPoint file, not another presentation software. If you’re only looking to add a portion of an Excel file, refer to the previous paragraph.
There are a number of ways to make your presentation more appealing using Excel. First, you can strategically colour-code your graphs and charts. For instance, you can use distinct colours to distinguish a table’s headers from its data cells. You can also distinguish different categories from each other in a pie chart using various colours.
Besides colours, there are near-endless ways to customise your Excel sheets to make them more visually appealing. From fancy lines to different font styles and bold lettering, you can get creative in the formatting section of your Excel graph before you export it. If you want to make the numbers contained within your document as presentable as possible, we highly recommend adding a dashboard tab to the file.
Excel is great for crunching numbers, but this specialised software also contains all the tools you need to present your data in a compelling, aesthetically pleasing manner. You can then present this information directly from your Excel file or, as mentioned earlier, export it to your dedicated PowerPoint document.
Creating the perfect chart can take some time. Luckily, Excel allows you to save the chart templates you’ve worked so hard on. All you need to do is right-click the chart in question then click ‘Save as Template.’ You’ll then need to choose a location in your computer to save your new template. The process is similar if you’re looking to save a table.
The ability to save charts and tables as templates saves you the trouble of having to re-create them in the future. If you’re importing these assets directly into your PowerPoint presentations, it also ensures that your visuals remain consistent over time.
It’s easy to see why Excel is such a popular tool across different industries and professions. This software allows you to make sense of large volumes of raw data in a much more efficient manner than would be possible with a pen and paper or calculator. Where Excel also excels is in its graphing and presentation abilities. With the click of a few buttons, raw data is transformed into a filtered visual graph that quickly provides powerful insights that elevate a presentation.
Get started with filtering data and graphing datasets in different styles and you’ll quickly be able to apply them to your own professional life and level up your presentations with the help of Excel.
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