1. Adding Free Text to the Chart

2. Activating the drawing tool bar Adding Free Text to the Chart, Slide 2Copyright © 2004, Jim Schwab, University of Texas at Austin We can add additional information or details to a chart by including a text box on the chart. We will refer to this as free text since it is not linked to any chart element and can be positioned anywhere on the chart. To add a text box, we must first activate the Drawing tool bar by clicking on the Drawing tool button on the Standard tool bar. Excel positions the Drawing tool bar is positioned at the bottom of the window above the Status Bar.

3. Positioning the text box - 1 Adding Free Text to the Chart, Slide 3Copyright © 2004, Jim Schwab, University of Texas at Austin First, click on the text box tool button on the Drawing tool bar. The cursor become a text insertion bar. Second, position the text insertion bar over the chart in the position where you want to locate the text box.

4. Positioning the text box - 2 Adding Free Text to the Chart, Slide 4Copyright © 2004, Jim Schwab, University of Texas at Austin With the insertion bar cursor located over the chart, click the mouse button. An empty text box is opened on the chart surface.

5. Typing the contents of the text box Adding Free Text to the Chart, Slide 5Copyright © 2004, Jim Schwab, University of Texas at Austin Type the text that you want to include in the text box. Note the dashed border around the text box. It indicates that the text box is active for text entry. One detail that we often want to add to a chart is the total number of cases represented in the chart. In this example, we would add the text N = 129.

6. The text box selected for re-location Adding Free Text to the Chart, Slide 6Copyright © 2004, Jim Schwab, University of Texas at Austin We click on the dashed border of the text box to select the text box itself. The text box border is now a band of dots. The cursor changes to the four arrow move cursor, indicating that Excel expects us to move the text.

7. Dragging the text box to a new location Adding Free Text to the Chart, Slide 7Copyright © 2004, Jim Schwab, University of Texas at Austin Hold the mouse button down over the dotted border of the text box and drag the text box to the left and up a little bit. The dashed outline shows where the text box will be located when the mouse button is released.

8. The text box centered over the pie Adding Free Text to the Chart, Slide 8Copyright © 2004, Jim Schwab, University of Texas at Austin The text box is now centered over the pie in the chart. The text in the text box can be formatted like any other text, i.e. changing the face, size, style, or alignment of the text. In addition, we can add borders or change the colors of the text box. We can add as many text boxes to the chart as we want.