Changing Fonts and Other Text Options for Charts in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

Even though charts are a visual medium, they still contain plenty of text in the form of data labels, titles, legend, axis labels, etc. Whenever you insert a new chart in PowerPoint, colors and fonts based on the active Theme of the presentation are used.

In this tutorial, you are going to learn how you can change the font and use other text options for charts in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows:

1. Select the chart that you want to edit. If you don’t have a chart on your slide, insert a chart and select it.
2. When you select the chart, you'll find that the entire chart area gets selected. If you want to change the font and other text options only for a chart element, then you have to select that particular element by clicking on it. Alternatively, you can select any chart element from the contextual Chart Tools Format tab of the Ribbon and change the font and other text options. For now, click on the Horizontal Category Axis within your chart to select it, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.
3. 
   Figure 1: Horizontal Category Axis selected

Contextual Tabs

The Chart Tools and Format tabs are contextual tabs. Contextual tabs are special tabs in the Ribbon that are not visible all the time. They only make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options.
3. Thereafter, choose any of these two options to change font and text formatting:
1. Access the Home tab of the Ribbon and select the required options within the Font group, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below.
2. 
   Figure 2: Font group within Home tab of the Ribbon
2. Carefully right-click on the Horizontal Category Axis and from the contextual menu that comes up, select the Font option as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3.
3. 
   Figure 3: Font option selected
4. Doing so will open the multi-tabbed Font dialog box that you can see in Figure 4, below. Make sure that the Font tab is selected, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4. Some options within the Font group as shown in Figure 2, earlier on this page are not included in the Font dialog box. Primarily, the option to add shadow to text is missing.
5. 
   Figure 4: Font dialog box
4. After making required changes to text on the Horizontal Category Axis, click the OK button to get back to your slide. Save your presentation.