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"), 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.

Note: 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 to learn how to unlink content

Formatting Panel

Unlinked Discovery

 

Where the selected visual contains a discovery 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 Component drop-down list (green highlight), 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.

Note: Alongside the Components drop-down is a Reset option (blue arrow). Use this option to reset the formatting options back to their default state.

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.

Opening the Formatting Panel

Formatting Selector

The Formatting panel can be opened and pinned as needed.

  1. From the left-hand Toolbox, click Formatting Selector.

    This transforms the canvas into an intuitive, point-and-click formatting area. Hover your cursor over the content items on the canvas to highlight them for selection.

  2. Click the content item that you want to format.

    Clicking an "activated" component opens its formatting options in the Formatting panel.

  3. Update the formatting options as appropriate to your requirements.

The options that are selected in the Formatting panel depend on the content item that you have selected. For details about the options in this panel, see Formatting Panel.

When in the formatting selection mode, editable items are displayed with a blue border:

Other Options

Instead of following the preceding steps, 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 Show Panels > More Panel Options 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 Slide Panel Settings open in the Formatting panel. These options control the same format options as Panel Settings, but they apply to every panel on the slide.
  • Selecting the visual and expanding the Formatting panel from the workspace tabs.

Applying Formatting Changes

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.