9.3 Charts and data on slides
A number on your slide lands, instead of being read out.
Before:00. Getting Your FootingUnlocks:10. PowerPoint — Design & Delivery
A number lands on a slide only if the audience can absorb it from the back of a room, and this topic covers simplifying charts for presentation, the linked-versus-embedded choice when pasting from Excel, and making the one number that matters large. It sits in the core module because most decks carry data badly. The common confusion is pasting a desk-grade chart — gridlines, legend, eight series — onto a slide unchanged; a chart for a room needs a different and far simpler design than a chart for a desk.
Work through these
Pasting from Excel: linked vs embedded vs picture
A chart from a spreadsheet can be linked, embedded or pasted as a picture. Each behaves differently when the source changes, or when the file is sent onward. Choosing deliberately avoids both stale numbers and broken links.
Simplifying a chart for a room rather than a desk
A chart for a room needs far less detail than one for a desk, because the audience has seconds and no ability to zoom. Simplifying is the main work.
The one number that matters, made large
If one figure is the point, make it large and put the supporting detail elsewhere. Audiences remember a number they were shown, not one they had to find.
Tables on slides, and how few rows is enough
Tables on slides work only when they are very small, and a table of twenty rows is a handout rather than a slide. Deciding which it is prevents a wasted minute in the room.
Practice file
- pp-01-fix-this-deck.pptx
A genuinely bad ten-slide deck: wall-of-text slides, clashing fonts, a misleading chart. Fix it.
Opens in PowerPoint. Every name, number and address in these files is made up. No account needed to download.
Sign in to keep your progress.
Free resources
We haven't checked most of these for screen reader use yet.
Links last checked 29 Aug 2026.
Stuck here?
Ask a mentor. A real person answers, and they can see exactly which topic you're on. Usually within a couple of working days.
Checking your session…
Topics shown in module order.