Microsoft PowerPoint: Create and Use Chart Templates

by AJ Walther  

 

Do you work for an organization that uses many charts? Do all of those charts need to be formatted to match specific corporate branding? Does this take you ages? Utilizing PowerPoint's custom Chart Templates might just save you a lot of time.

 

Create a Chart Template

1. Insert a chart in PowerPoint
2. Format the chart to reflect your company's branding guidelines.
   
3. Ensure the chart is selected (it will have a gray border) and choose Chart Tools Design > Save As Template.
   
4. Give the chart template a name. (PowerPoint will automatically save the chart template where it needs to go.)
5. Repeat this process for all charts that need a template. (You won't be able to apply a chart template to a different kind of chart, so you'll need to do this for every type of chart you plan to use.)

Apply a Saved Chart Template

1. Select a chart that requires your corporate formatting.
2. From the Ribbon, choose Chart Tools Design > Change Chart Type.
   
3. From the Change Chart Type dialog box, select theTemplates folder from the categories at the left.
   
4. From the My Templates area, hover over each chart to view its chart name.
5. Choose your desired chart template and click the OK button.

You might have to do some additional formatting based upon the amount of information in your chart, but overall this process should save you a lot of design time.

Share a Chart Template With Your Team

There are a few ways that you could distribute your chart template to others on your team. Here is one of the easiest ways:

1. Send a presentation to everyone on your team that would need to utilize the chart template. (Keep in mind that the template needs to includes one properly formatted chart of every type your company may need to use.)
2. Instruct your team to follow the instructions above to save the Chart Templates to their systems.

And that's it... everyone should now have readily available chart templates on their systems.

 

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If you love AJ's articles, you'll love her Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations mini course.