Thanks, Jim and Peter. Your ideas look promising. I especially like
Peter's rectangle with the fat borders. I didn't know the border could
be so thick. Jim, your 4-rectangle solution is pretty much what I'm
doing. It's workable, but ends up with 8 rectangles by the time I
create the wall around it. Anyway, I'll study these ideas and see if I
can adapt one or more of them. Again, many thanks! James

Jim Cone wrote:
James,
"Any more ideas?"

I like Peter T's suggestion of adjusting the border width...

Sub JustOneWillDoIt()
With ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeRectangle, 99, 132, 99, 99)
.Line.Weight = 40
.Fill.Visible = msoFalse
End With
End Sub
'-----------

However if the size of the filled portions are not a constant then perhaps
instead of inserting one rectangle, insert 4 rectangles to make up
the fill area. The rectangle's borders do not have to show, so the 4 graphics
could even overlap. Something like this? ...
'-------------------
Sub UseMultipleRetangles()
Dim shpOne As Excel.Shape
Dim shpTwo As Excel.Shape

' vertical left ' left, top, width, height
With ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeRectangle, 69.75, 132, 50.25, 258)
'vertical right
Set shpOne = .Duplicate
shpOne.Left = .Left + .Width + 279
shpOne.Top = .Top
End With
' horizontal top
With ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeRectangle, 120, shpOne.Top, 279, 45)
'horizontal bottom
Set shpTwo = .Duplicate
shpTwo.Left = .Left
shpTwo.Top = shpOne.Top + shpOne.Height - .Height
' .Line.Visible = msoFalse
End With
End Sub
-----------
Jim Cone
San Francisco, USA
http://www.officeletter.com/blink/specialsort.html