Last week I was working with an organization who has a library of graphics that they encourage their staff to use. This gives a consistency to the look of their presentations. Each graphic represents a specific role, service, or element of their business. When I was reviewing the graphics, I noticed that the graphics did…
Tag: 2018
Bar charts with long category labels; Issue #428 November 27 2018
How do we create graphs with category labels that contain a lot of text? If you are comparing values to each other, a column graph can get tricky since Excel and PowerPoint will turn the text at an angle and cut off labels that are really long. This makes it very hard for the audience…
2018 Gift List for Presenters and Recommended Products & Services; Issue #427 November 13 2018
As soon as Halloween was done two weeks ago I started to see Christmas decorations go up in stores and on homes. When I was walking around Chicago last week the decorating was in high gear in the city. It is the time of year we start to think of gifts for others (and ourselves)…
FinancialViz Makeover: Comparing to an average with long labels; Issue #426 October 30 2018
The latest FinancialViz makeover video I posted illustrates how to create an effective visual when dealing with two situations: first, values are compared to an industry average, and second, the company names are long. The original visual was published in the June 2018 issue of the Globe and Mail Report on Business magazine. This is the…
Change indicator characters; Issue #425 October 16 2018
The difference between two numbers is a common element of many presentations. It could be the difference between actual and budget, this year and last year, industry average and our performance, or any two numbers that measure an important metric. Visually showing whether that difference is positive, negative, or neutral in a table is what…
Accurate Design Ideas-like Timeline; Issue #424 October 2 2018
In a previous newsletter I showed an example of how PowerPoint’s Design Ideas feature (last week Microsoft changed the name from Designer to Design Ideas) can create a visual from a bullet list of dates for events. Here is the example it created. I like the idea of the events being placed on a timeline…
FinancialViz Makeover Change in sectors over time; Issue #423 September 18 2018
The latest FinancialViz makeover I posted illustrates a better way to show change in values over time. The original visual was published in the July 2018 issue of the Globe and Mail ROB magazine. Here is the original visual. I selected this visual because it illustrates two issues that lead to audiences misinterpreting the meaning…
Getting Designer ideas without Office 365 at work; Issue #422 September 4 2018
Software and services are always looking for ways to improve our work, and PowerPoint is no different. About two years ago PowerPoint introduced a feature called Designer. This feature interprets the content on your slide as you create it and suggests different layouts to improve the look of the slide. Designer suggests a more visual…
Four places to find headlines in your slides; Issue #421 August 21 2018
In my customized workshops one of the key takeaways from the section on creating effective visuals slides is to start by writing a headline for each slide. A headline summarizes the key message you want the audience to understand. Think of the headline for your slide like the headline of a news story or article.…
Graph using Excel Data Bars; Issue #420 August 7, 2018
Most business professionals are familiar with creating graphs in Excel using the powerful built-in graph features. Today I want to show another feature of Excel that can be used to create a bar graph quickly in Excel. It has limitations but can be particularly useful when you want to create multiple bar graphs of related…