Link data to charts and tables in Zoho Show

Your audience won't remember your content if you simply say, "Our growth rate has increased." Instead, try, "Our growth rate has increased from 11% to 20% in just 6 months." Adding data is the best way to make your presentation more memorable. Visualizing it is even better, as it helps your audience understand your point at a glance.

In Spotlight Series #18, we examined different types of charts and their uses. In this month's spotlight series post, we'll discuss how to add data to a chart or table in different ways.

Ways to add data to charts and tables

Get started by creating a chart: Click on Data Art and choose an appropriate chart or table style, and click Insert to add it to your slide. Here is how you can add data to your chart or a table.

Manually

Once you insert a chart, you will be able to enter the data. You can also modify it by clicking the Edit Data button in the right bottom corner.

However, this will not be efficient if you are handling a large amount of data or working with variables that change frequently. In such cases, doing it manually can also lead to errors.

Using data fields

Let's assume you are preparing the sales performance report for your company across regions for every quarter. Few data like the team's contact details, sales revenue numbers, and client details will keep changing across different regions.

Instead of creating new presentations for every region, you can store the values as data fields and update them across slides in a single click. This is more efficient because you don't have to spend time designing the slides and rewriting content every time.

Here is a detailed guide on how you can add a data field to your presentation.

To use the existing data field in your data art, click on the Data Fields option in the bottom left corner (under Link Data) and select the required field.

Linking data from Zoho Sheets

Companies are storing a significant amount of sales and marketing data in spreadsheets. Most of this can be used in various business presentations.

You no longer have to switch between tabs to import or add data to your slides. Instead, you can fetch data stored in Zoho Sheets directly from the Show interface.

Click the Insert Spreadsheet option next to the Data Field option. A pop-up box appears which will show you the list of files stored in your WorkDrive. Choose the file with the data and click Pick.

Now you'll be able to see a preview of the spreadsheet. Select the cell range that contains the required data and press the Update button. Choose the appropriate chart or table type and click Insert. Your data art will now be added to your slide.

Also, if there is any change in the values in the spreadsheet, the changes will automatically be updated in your presentation by clicking on the Sync button.

Detach mapping from a chart or table

You can remove the data you have linked to a chart or a table by detaching the field. You'll be able to make this change to a single slide as well as the entire presentation.

If you want to use the data stored in the same spreadsheet, you can also edit the data field without deleting it.

Check out the guide to detaching a data field for more information.