Del -

My intention was to give the people who need to click on the Wizard the
opportunity to construct a graph that portrays what they want, and doesn't
require changing series chart types and so on. I don't want to get into an
argument about this; I don't have anything against the traditional box as
such. I just say it's not absolutely necessary.

I do have something against notches, though, and I've worked out what it
is: I always got the impression that the width of the waist meant
something, which is why I was so surprised to finally find out that it was
all just about the height of the notch, not how deeply it cuts into the
box. Because the notches were straight lines, they looked like this:

<

and had different angles for different heights. To counteract this, I may
see if I can use my limited artistic skills to design an AutoShape or
group of Autoshapes a bit like this:

} {

and substitute it for the central bar of a stacked bar chart. The idea is
that because the vertical lines will stay vertical for all values, it will
be more obvious that the information being presented is all about heights,
and widths should be ignored. I'm hoping that the final visual effect will
be intuitively obvious to people used to traditional notches, and not
cause them any confusion.

I don't mean to be arguing, I was thinking of an alternative to the notch
that fits within the constraints of the box chart. I'm not wild about the
notch construction, and your observation about the width and depth of the
notch touches on my unfamiliarity with it. I had in mind a version with a
new rectangle in the middle of the stack to replace the notch, which keeps
the focus on heights and not on widths.

I understand now your intention to give users a choice not to hassle with
the extensive mechanics of box chart creation. You're right: the boxes are
not required. The challenge as always is to display the information clearly.

- Jon
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Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
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