From the course: Learning Data Analytics Part 2: Extending and Applying Core Knowledge

Setting templates and default charts

From the course: Learning Data Analytics Part 2: Extending and Applying Core Knowledge

Setting templates and default charts

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- [Instructor] I've been in plenty of environments where the executives of that organization have determined what types of visuals they expect and what colors they expect. As the rise of information on branding and company branding over the years has gained traction, you'll find that your organization may likely want you to maintain brand standards for their charts. No matter what scenario you find yourself in, the idea of changing colors of the charts from the standard color scheme to match the requirements over and over and over again is a drain on productivity, when you can just set a chart template or customize the theme. Starting in Office 2007, I believe, there was a theme supplied to every document, spreadsheet and PowerPoint, you name it. You should learn how to leverage this theme, so it will save you critical time on less important tasks, like changing fonts on every file or colors to match. You'll find these themes in Excel on the Page Layout tab. Let's go ahead and take a look at the Page Layout tab. And the very first section is Themes. I'll go ahead and hover over each one of these themes and let you see. Immediately, you see how that theme is impacting our charts. Okay, I'll go ahead and choose the Dividend theme. Remember, depending on your version of Office, you may see different themes and you may see different theme names. When your organization has a brand standard and they send you those font colors and those theme colors, and they expect you to use them, don't worry. You can a little time upfront and create those themes and save yourself a ton of time. And they're little tricks that you can apply to provide them to your colleagues, so that everyone in the department or organization would have consistent formatting throughout. This will really help you stand out. Now, it is important to note, that even though I've selected a theme, I can adjust every color and I can adjust the colors in the actual theme. I'll go ahead and cancel that. I can adjust my fonts, and again, customize my fonts for every type of information. And I can also supply different types of effects. Okay? Because you can adjust every color, every font and every effect, you can see that adjusting the theme really does pay dividends. It saves you time and increases your productivity. Another option that you can supply to your charts is actually using chart templates. Let's go take a look at our test combo. So, we noticed that when we built this beautiful Dividends theme into our file, well, look at the impact to the line. The line is still there, but it's a relatively close color to the columns. I really want it to stand out a little bit. I'm going to go ahead and choose my line there. I'll go ahead and go to my Format option. I'll hit my paint can up top. And because I have a theme supplied, I see my exact theme colors. I want to choose this Aqua color. I'll go to my line here and choose my Aqua color again. And this is going to make my lines stand out a little bit more. Remember, colors or preference, or also determined by those brand standards and those guidelines. Okay, so now that I know that this is going to be the way I style this chart, I might as well go ahead and save this chart as a template. I'm going to right-click and choose Save as Template. Okay, I'm going to name this MyCustomChart, and it's going to put it into a templates folder. I don't want to change that, and I'll show you why just a second. I'll go ahead and choose Save, and now I have this chart template. All right, so let me go back over to my PO by customers, I'm going to highlight my information. Now, when I go to Insert and I go to Recommended Charts, I can go over to All Charts and I can see My Templates. There's my exact custom chart. Okay? Now, what I'm going to do now is right-click that and set that as the Default Chart. Okay, now let me show you how to use the Default Chart. All right, so I'm going to delete this one that I just created, I have my information highlighted, I'm going to press function key F11, and now I see my Default Chart. Amazing, and also a major increase in productivity. We all need more time. So, if we implement settings that save us a little time over time, we really are increasing our productivity.

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