Mr. Romney, a detail-oriented former consultant, was already something of a legend among campaign staff for his elaborate and organized PowerPoint presentations. But in recent days he has been unveiling a wonky arsenal of props — white boards and charts, for instance — on the campaign trail, emerging as a mix between a professor addressing a lecture hall and a traveling salesman making his pitch.

On Thursday, Mr. Romney used an oversize bar graph to help unveil his new energy plan here. “This is not some pie-in-the-sky thing,” Mr. Romney said, before turning to a graph that, despite its large size, was all but impossible for those in the audience to read…

Mr. Romney is a natural-born number cruncher, and his charts and graphs seem to be part of an effort to both convey his understanding of complex issues and try to simplify them into digestible bites for the average voter.