Learn about the Major and Minor Tick Marks on Chart Axes in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
OS: Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
Charts are a visual representation of data, and when seen on a PowerPoint slide from afar, you make out the value of a series by exploring where exactly it's placed vis-à-vis the axis. Of course, if your chart has data labels, then this is less of an issue -- however, typical charts such as the one shown in Figure 1, below have no data labels. For such a chart, you'll notice that the column representing Grapes in 2009 is a little taller than the value 4 in the adjacent axis, indicating a rough value of around 4.25. We're still not sure -- and the Tick Marks placed on the axis will help us get a better idea.
There are two types of Tick Marks -- Major and Minor. In Figure 1 below -- we chose two colors to highlight these tick marks because most chart types show two types of tick marks on axes -- Major (highlighted in red) and Minor (highlighted in blue).
Figure 1: Major and Minor Tick marks on chart axes
Major tick marks are indications on an axis that show up:
Both are shown in Figure 1, above (highlighted in red).
Major tick marks are the indications on an axis that show up between categories on the Horizontal axis, and, besides Major Unit values on the Vertical axis as shown in Figure 1, above (highlighted in red).
Minor tick marks are those tick marks that appear between the Major tick marks on an axis -- typically PowerPoint charts do not display Minor tick marks, but we enabled them in the chart shown in Figure 1 above (highlighted in blue). Minor tick marks help users measure the distance between the Major tick marks.
If you look at this picture of a ruler (picture sourced from
Office.com), you'll recollect that both Major and Minor tick
marks have been available in all types of rulers we have used -- even the rulers used in primary school.
In this tutorial we will learn how to show/hide these tick marks and also where you display these Major and Minor tick marks:
Figure 6 shows the positions of Major tick marks on Value Axis when we selected the None, Inside, Outside, and Cross options.
Figure 6: Major Tick mark positioned at None, Inside, Outside, and Cross on Value axis
Figure 7 shows the positions of Minor tick marks on Value Axis when we selected the
None, Inside, Outside, and Cross options.
Figure 7: Minor Tick mark positioned at None, Inside, Outside, and Cross on Value axis
Figure 8 shows the positions of Major tick marks on Category Axis when we selected the None, Inside, Outside, and Cross options.
Figure 8: Major Tick mark positioned at None, Inside, Outside, and Cross on Category Axis
Figure 9 shows the positions of Minor tick marks on Category Axis when we selected the None, Inside, Outside, and Cross options.
Figure 9: Minor Tick mark positioned at None, Inside, Outside, and Cross on Category Axis
See Also:
Tick Marks on Chart Axes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Tick Marks on Chart Axes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
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