Applying Shape Styles and WordArt Styles


Now that you have your chart created and laid out with the appropriate chart elements-titles, legends, labels, and so on-it's time to explore the fancy formatting options available via the Format tab. If you select any part of your chart and click the Format tab, you'll find two Ribbon groups of interest: Shape Styles and WordArt Styles. Each of these consists of a gallery plus three dialog box commands. (The WordArt Styles gallery is available only when you have selected a chart element that includes text-a title, a legend, or an axis.) Here is what you might see when you open the Shape Styles gallery:

image from book

Shape Styles and WordArt Styles are both keyed to the current theme. If you change the theme (by clicking the Page Layout tab on the Ribbon and then clicking Themes), you get different sets of shape styles and WordArt styles. The styles are intended to let you be visually creative (even flamboyant) while maintaining a tasteful degree of consistency across all the elements of your workbook-cells, headings, tables, and charts.

You can apply WordArt styles, as their name suggests, to the textual elements of a chart. You apply shape styles to areas and lines. If you select gridlines, an axis, or a series on a line chart, the Shape Styles gallery displays options for changing the appearance of lines. If you select the chart area, the plot area, a title, a legend, or a data series in a chart type such as column, pie, or bar, you see a Shape Styles gallery that looks more like the one shown previously.

Note 

If you're not sure what part of the chart you have selected, look at the Chart Objects list, which appears on the upper-left corner of the Ribbon (right below the word Home) when the Format tab is active. In addition to showing you what's selected, this drop-down list also lets you change the selection.

Why would selecting a title produce a gallery of area-oriented shape options? Because titles appear against backgrounds that can be formatted independently of their surrounding areas. When you choose an area option from the Shape Styles gallery, you're determining three factors at once-the color or gradient applied to the area's background, the color of the border around the area (which might be different from the background color), and the color of the text (white against dark backgrounds or black against light ones).

The best way to understand what the Shape Styles and WordArt Styles galleries can do for you is to experiment. Select an element of your chart, open the Shape Styles gallery, rest your pointer on the various options, and notice the effect on your chart. If you don't like what's happening and want to keep the chart looking the way it did before, click somewhere other than the gallery. If you select an option and change your mind, press Ctrl+Z; alternatively, click Reset To Match Style (to the left of the Shape Styles gallery). Experiment similarly with the WordArt Styles gallery.

Further shape-formatting options are available via the three drop-down lists to the right of the Shape Styles gallery. Shape Fill and Shape Outline let you tailor areas and the borders of areas, respectively. The Shape Effects item opens a whole world of other glitzy style choices, including shadows, glows, soft edges, and bevel effects. A similar set of advanced options appears to the right of the WordArt Styles gallery and is available when you select a text element of the chart.



Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Inside Out
MicrosoftВ® Office ExcelВ® 2007 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))
ISBN: 073562321X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 260

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