Another Coffee Break: Word and Excel Templates

Posted by nnlmneo on February 6th, 2015 Posted in: Data Visualization

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Here at the Outreach Evaluation Resource Center (OERC) we began 2015 blogging about the CDC Coffee Breaks. For February we’re offering a refill by featuring some notes from a recent American Evaluation Association (AEA) coffee break webcast. Unlike the CDC, the 20 minute AEA coffee break webcasts are not freely available to the public but are an included benefit of AEA membership. The webcast briefly covered best practices in data visualization using two commonly available resources (Microsoft Word and Excel) and how to automate use of them by creating templates for report format consistency and easier workflow.

Some great resources to learn more how to do this and bookmark for future reference include

• Stephanie Evergreen’s Data Visualization Checklist  – tips for both Word and Excel at http://stephanieevergreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/DataVizChecklist_May2014.pdf

Specific for Word

• Step by step instructions for creating, modifying, and saving templates (called Quick Style Sets) – https://support.office.com/en-US/Article/Make-changes-to-a-Quick-Style-set-cd6ec7b6-d4db-42bf-816a-fb7ae5171b46?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
• Video demonstrating how to save table styles in Word 2010 –  http://www.knowledgewave.com/blog/msoffice/word/word-2010-save-a-table-style-for-greater-efficiency.html

Specific for Excel

• Step by step instructions for saving charts as templates and applying the template to future charts – https://support.office.com/en-US/Article/Reuse-a-favorite-chart-by-using-a-chart-template-505ba53b-41b1-49af-9886-5179640a14ae
• Working with Excel 2010 charts – http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-essentials-of-working-with-excel-2010-charts.html
• Excel Dashboards and Reports – http://www.dummies.com/how-to/computers-software/ms-office/Excel/Excel-Dashboards-and-Reports-For-Dummies-Extras.html