Here's an example taken from a student presentation:

what wrong with this?

• It's crowded
• Too many data rows
• years descend from left to right (normally you'd want 99 - 00 - 01)

Solution:

1. split table and simplify
2. create charts to illustrate data better.

1. Open up Powerpoint.
2. Choose table slide to insert
3. 4 rows, 4 columns
4. Insert the following data:
   
5. Select View —> Toolbars —> Table
   
   • fool about with borders and fill effects
   • Select all and change font (to a sans serif font of course)
   • format heading text to bold
   • figure out how to add and delete rows and columns
6. Make another table like this:
   

There is too much disparate data on the first table to make an effective chart so we'll simplify even further. We'll make a chart like this:

1. Insert —> New Slide : Chart
2. Double-click on Chart icon. A dummy chart appears with a datasheet
1. Click top left corner and press Crtl-A to select all the cells:
   
   Now press Delete to delete all the contents
2. Now go to the previous slide with the finances chart
   and holding down the key select the top two rows of data (Year and sales)
   Press Crtl-C to copy.
3. Move back to the chart slide. Agg! Everything seems to be gone! But no fear!
   Double-click in the chart area and the datasheet table pops up.
   Click the top left cell and press Ctrl-V to paste in the data
4. Having got the data in, you can now close the Datasheet window
3. Change the Title to "Land Rover : Sales"
4. Now we want to change the chart type from 3D to 2D:
   • Right-click in the Chart Area and choose Chart Type:
     

     Select the 2D simple column layout (first on the list)

5. Other formatting:
   • Rt-click on "Format Gridlines" and select clear
   • Rt-click in Plot Area and choose Border : none
   • You may want to change the scale of the axes and do other fun formatting things
6. Now make a chart from the Ford and Landrover finances(2) table above.
   This table has all the same kind of data so we can chart the whole data set.
   • Follow the same steps as before to create a new chart.
   • But this time you can select all the data to chart
   • Reformat to 2D as before
   

1. Select the chart (but don't to edit it)
2. Rt-click —> custom animation.
   
   • choose Chart 2
   • Introduce chart elements: Introduce by series
   • click Preview

   

3. Now repeat with the complex chart you made from Finances (2).
   Note that by introducing chart elements in this way you can explain trends more easily