Formatting Panel

You can use the Formatting panel in Present Pro to change the appearance of the visuals and panels included in your presentation. If the visual in your panel is not linked to a Discovery (it has been "unlinked" or created in Present), you can edit all relevant formatting options, including Panel Settings. If the visual in your panel is linked to a Discovery, is a visual area from Tabulate, or is a Slicer, you can only format the Panel Settings or Slicer Format in Present; any other formatting (for example, editing the text for your legend) must be done in the linked app.

Important: When you change formatting options inside a presentation, your changes only impact that presentation. When you open the linked visual in its source app, any formatting changes you make apply anywhere the visual appears.

  • Click here for more information about formatting and design
  • Click here to learn how to unlink content

Opening the Formatting panel

Click Expand (green arrow) to open the Formatting panel at the right side of the interface:

More Panel Options

Selecting Show Panels > More Panel Options (green arrow) from the Component or Slide ribbons:

Note: If you select this option from the Slide ribbon or with more than one panel selected on the slide, the Formatting panel opens with the Slide Panel Settings selected. These options control the same format options as Panel Settings, but they apply to every panel on the slide.

Other Options

You can also open the Formatting panel by:

  • Right-clicking the visual and selecting Panel Settings or, in the case of slicers, Format from the context menu.
  • Selecting the visual and expanding the Formatting panel from the workspace tabs.
  • Use the Formatting Selector from the Toolbox.

Formatting Panel

Formatting panel header

Using the options along the header bar, you can:

  • Click Pin (blue arrow) to pin or dock the Formatting panel. By default, the panel "docks" beneath the Slides panel. Once you've docked the panel, you will need to click Collapse if you want to close it again.
  • Click Collapse (yellow arrow) to close the panel.

Formatting panel content

Unlinked or one-off visual

Where the selected visual contains a visual that is local to this presentation; that is, it was created in Present or has been unlinked from its original discovery; you can edit any of its formatting in Present.

For unlinked visuals, the Formatting panel contains a Content item drop-down list (green arrow), which allows you to select:

  • The formatting options associated with the selected visualization type, such as Report Title, Data, Color, and so on. (If you're working on a grid, grid options are shown; if you're working on a pie chart, formatting options for pie charts are shown; and so on.) These options are described in the Discovery Pro section: Formatting Panel.
  • Panel Settings: These formatting options are specific to the panel that contains the visual when it is shown in the presentation, indicating its general look and feel and that of its title and subtitle. For details of these settings, see Panel Settings.

Linked Discovery or other panel type

The Component drop-down list (see previous) is locked where the selected visual is:

  • Linked to a discovery.
  • A Tabulate visual area.
  • A slicer.
  • A container for a mini-tab or table layout.

In these cases, only the presentation-specific Panel Settings formatting options are offered in Present:

  • For linked discoveries, containers, and Tabulate visual areas, these are the Panel Settings options. Use these options to format the panel containing the visual when it is shown in the presentation, indicating its general look and feel, the look and feel of its title and subtitle, and its panel tools when viewed at runtime.
  • For Slicers, use the Slicer formatting options to modify the panel containing the slicer and other slicer formatting options.

If you want to make other formatting changes to a visual of this type, you can either:

  • Open the linked visual or visual area in Discover or Tabulate using the right-click Open in... option. Note: You will not be able to edit the Panel Settings in this view, since Panel Settings are specific to presentations. You will be able to edit formatting options that are relevant to the discovery or spreadsheet wherever it is shown.
  • Unlink the linked visual from its Discovery. To do this, you can select the item, right-click, and select unlink. Once it has been unlinked, the Formatting panel (when expanded) displays the item's formatting options as described above. Any formatting changes will be applied only to the selected unlinked item; other instances of the item (the original instance in Discover) will not be affected.

Panel Formatting options

The Formatting panel is available in Discover, Present, Publish, and Tabulate. In each of these modules, the Formatting panel shows some or all of the same formatting options. For details about applying various formatting changes to different visualization types, review the documentation in the Discover Pro section: Formatting Panel.

In addition to the common Formatting panel content, Present Pro also offers formatting options relating to the panels that you include on your slides. For information about these settings, see Panel Settings.