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#1
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Maybe I'm missing something. If so, let me know.
The process of creating a chart is unintuitive and cumbersome. A big step backwards from 2003. The manual says to just select your data and insert the chart. What I find is that 95% of the time, I have to re-do the data selection. If I highlight two columns and insert the graph, Excel thinks both columns are two different series instead of x and y axis. I create two columns, label one of them "X", one of them "Y". Put some numbers below that. Now insert an XY chart. One would think that it could figure out "2 columns selected...inserting an XY chart....first column must be the X, second column must be the Y". Nope. Excel thinks both are Series1 and Series2, with no X axis selected. Dumb! What happened to the Chart Wizard? |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
I'm not happy with Excel 2007 charting. I find the dialogs cumbersome and
awkward, the ribbons unintuitively arranged, and the lack of the old chart options dialog (and the wizard) to be a significant loss. On the other hand, look at all the pretty colors! - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "bdtmike" wrote in message ... Maybe I'm missing something. If so, let me know. The process of creating a chart is unintuitive and cumbersome. A big step backwards from 2003. The manual says to just select your data and insert the chart. What I find is that 95% of the time, I have to re-do the data selection. If I highlight two columns and insert the graph, Excel thinks both columns are two different series instead of x and y axis. I create two columns, label one of them "X", one of them "Y". Put some numbers below that. Now insert an XY chart. One would think that it could figure out "2 columns selected...inserting an XY chart....first column must be the X, second column must be the Y". Nope. Excel thinks both are Series1 and Series2, with no X axis selected. Dumb! What happened to the Chart Wizard? |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Yes, they are very pretty....once you finally get them right :)
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#4
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
I'm guessing it's you. :-) I think charting in Excel 2007 is greatly
improved. |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Name one improvement that isn't eye candy.
- Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... I'm guessing it's you. :-) I think charting in Excel 2007 is greatly improved. |
#6
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Why doesn't "eye candy" count? That's what charts are.
But I'll name one anyway: the way charts are integrated into the Office Suite has improved a ton. When I cut & paste a chart into Powerpoint, and then later go back to edit the chart in Powerpoint, the ribbon in Powerpoint gives me most (maybe all -- I'm not sure) of the options I would have natively in Excel -- it's a real improvement for me. It's not eye candy -- it saves me a lot of time. But again, in the case of charts, eye candy is important. Charts are visual. When users look at a chart and get distracted because two colors look too similar (something that happened a lot in Excel 2003) it's a problem. Excel 2007 fixed that. It is eye candy, and in the case of charting, it's important. "Jon Peltier" wrote: Name one improvement that isn't eye candy. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... I'm guessing it's you. :-) I think charting in Excel 2007 is greatly improved. |
#7
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
The OLE treatment of Excel charts in other applications was a pain, but
double clicking brought up the chart inside a miniature Excel instance, so you could still do pretty much what you wanted with it. In addition, the OLE chart was accessible by VBA, so your program could also make adjustments. The new Office-wide charts seem to work pretty nicely, though I haven't used them much. They are not accessible by VBA, however, which I've already found to be a major disadvantage. Fortunately you can still use OLE techniques in Office 2007. FWIW, there's more than enough eye candy in Excel 2003. You can change the palette to prevent problems with colors being too similar. You shouldn't need more than 56 colors, really. Dealing with colors programmatically was also much easier in 2003 than in 2007. The rest of the eye candy, all the new gradients, the shadows, the glowing effects, the bevels and other 3D effects, are all just gratuitous formatting, which is more likely to detract from, not enhance, a chart. It's easier than ever to make a bad chart, faster than ever before. Charts are not about eye candy, they are about visualization to facilitate information analysis and transfer. Charts are about communication, about science and statistics and engineering. Eye candy is about marketing and emotion and distraction. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... Why doesn't "eye candy" count? That's what charts are. But I'll name one anyway: the way charts are integrated into the Office Suite has improved a ton. When I cut & paste a chart into Powerpoint, and then later go back to edit the chart in Powerpoint, the ribbon in Powerpoint gives me most (maybe all -- I'm not sure) of the options I would have natively in Excel -- it's a real improvement for me. It's not eye candy -- it saves me a lot of time. But again, in the case of charts, eye candy is important. Charts are visual. When users look at a chart and get distracted because two colors look too similar (something that happened a lot in Excel 2003) it's a problem. Excel 2007 fixed that. It is eye candy, and in the case of charting, it's important. "Jon Peltier" wrote: Name one improvement that isn't eye candy. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... I'm guessing it's you. :-) I think charting in Excel 2007 is greatly improved. |
#8
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
OK, then using your distinction between visualization and eye-candy, I'll
name a huge improvement that's not the latter: Good use of color is obviously key to good visualization, and Excel 2007 uses color way better than Excel 2003. You said I could "change the palette." Never mind that selecting colors is a skill I don't have: in 2003 I would have to, and in 2007 I don't -- so that's an improvement. "Office-wide charts." You said in 3 words what took me 30. :-) Another big improvement. Those two alone are a big step forward for charting in Excel 2007. I stand by my point. ---------- "Jon Peltier" wrote: The OLE treatment of Excel charts in other applications was a pain, but double clicking brought up the chart inside a miniature Excel instance, so you could still do pretty much what you wanted with it. In addition, the OLE chart was accessible by VBA, so your program could also make adjustments. The new Office-wide charts seem to work pretty nicely, though I haven't used them much. They are not accessible by VBA, however, which I've already found to be a major disadvantage. Fortunately you can still use OLE techniques in Office 2007. FWIW, there's more than enough eye candy in Excel 2003. You can change the palette to prevent problems with colors being too similar. You shouldn't need more than 56 colors, really. Dealing with colors programmatically was also much easier in 2003 than in 2007. The rest of the eye candy, all the new gradients, the shadows, the glowing effects, the bevels and other 3D effects, are all just gratuitous formatting, which is more likely to detract from, not enhance, a chart. It's easier than ever to make a bad chart, faster than ever before. Charts are not about eye candy, they are about visualization to facilitate information analysis and transfer. Charts are about communication, about science and statistics and engineering. Eye candy is about marketing and emotion and distraction. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... Why doesn't "eye candy" count? That's what charts are. But I'll name one anyway: the way charts are integrated into the Office Suite has improved a ton. When I cut & paste a chart into Powerpoint, and then later go back to edit the chart in Powerpoint, the ribbon in Powerpoint gives me most (maybe all -- I'm not sure) of the options I would have natively in Excel -- it's a real improvement for me. It's not eye candy -- it saves me a lot of time. But again, in the case of charts, eye candy is important. Charts are visual. When users look at a chart and get distracted because two colors look too similar (something that happened a lot in Excel 2003) it's a problem. Excel 2007 fixed that. It is eye candy, and in the case of charting, it's important. "Jon Peltier" wrote: Name one improvement that isn't eye candy. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... I'm guessing it's you. :-) I think charting in Excel 2007 is greatly improved. |
#9
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Good use of color is obviously key to good visualization, and Excel 2007 uses color way better than Excel 2003. You said I could "change the palette." Never mind that selecting colors is a skill I don't have: in 2003 I would have to, and in 2007 I don't -- so that's an improvement. You're correct. The themes are an improvement over the earlier palettes. So far I've found that the themes are harder to automate, but I may get better as I gain understanding of the underlying methodologies. Too bad the documentation is so vague. "Office-wide charts." You said in 3 words what took me 30. :-) Another big improvement. The lack of programmability of these objects in other applications makes this a big step backward. If you don't care about programmability, then it doesn't matter to you. I do care about programmability. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ |
#10
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Good points. Thanks for the dialog.
"Jon Peltier" wrote: Good use of color is obviously key to good visualization, and Excel 2007 uses color way better than Excel 2003. You said I could "change the palette." Never mind that selecting colors is a skill I don't have: in 2003 I would have to, and in 2007 I don't -- so that's an improvement. You're correct. The themes are an improvement over the earlier palettes. So far I've found that the themes are harder to automate, but I may get better as I gain understanding of the underlying methodologies. Too bad the documentation is so vague. "Office-wide charts." You said in 3 words what took me 30. :-) Another big improvement. The lack of programmability of these objects in other applications makes this a big step backward. If you don't care about programmability, then it doesn't matter to you. I do care about programmability. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ |
#11
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Jon, You might want to check in with Steve R and Shyam on this. We can
all help each other here I am sure. See you in another NG. And maybe you might want to show up on our monthly conf. call. Next one is Feb 13 at 1 pm EST. Brian Reilly, MVP On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:32:09 -0500, "Jon Peltier" wrote: Good use of color is obviously key to good visualization, and Excel 2007 uses color way better than Excel 2003. You said I could "change the palette." Never mind that selecting colors is a skill I don't have: in 2003 I would have to, and in 2007 I don't -- so that's an improvement. You're correct. The themes are an improvement over the earlier palettes. So far I've found that the themes are harder to automate, but I may get better as I gain understanding of the underlying methodologies. Too bad the documentation is so vague. "Office-wide charts." You said in 3 words what took me 30. :-) Another big improvement. The lack of programmability of these objects in other applications makes this a big step backward. If you don't care about programmability, then it doesn't matter to you. I do care about programmability. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ |
#12
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
Brian -
We went through this shortly after Office 2007 went RTM. There are apparent properties and objects in the OM, and apparent help topics, but nothing actually gets executed in VBA. There seems to be a gap in the hierarchy, and the chart properties are the red-headed stepchildren in all of this. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "Brian Reilly, MVP" wrote in message ... Jon, You might want to check in with Steve R and Shyam on this. We can all help each other here I am sure. See you in another NG. And maybe you might want to show up on our monthly conf. call. Next one is Feb 13 at 1 pm EST. Brian Reilly, MVP On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:32:09 -0500, "Jon Peltier" wrote: Good use of color is obviously key to good visualization, and Excel 2007 uses color way better than Excel 2003. You said I could "change the palette." Never mind that selecting colors is a skill I don't have: in 2003 I would have to, and in 2007 I don't -- so that's an improvement. You're correct. The themes are an improvement over the earlier palettes. So far I've found that the themes are harder to automate, but I may get better as I gain understanding of the underlying methodologies. Too bad the documentation is so vague. "Office-wide charts." You said in 3 words what took me 30. :-) Another big improvement. The lack of programmability of these objects in other applications makes this a big step backward. If you don't care about programmability, then it doesn't matter to you. I do care about programmability. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ |
#13
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
One improvement that isn't eye candy:
The log scaling. (before you could only do base 10) Let me think of another one ... Thicker lines, well that is eye candy but it is nice On Jan 9, 4:49 pm, "Jon Peltier" wrote: Name one improvement that isn't eye candy. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. -http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... I'm guessing it's you. :-) I think charting in Excel 2007 is greatly improved. |
#14
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Is is me? Or is Excel 2007 Charting Lame?
True, you can pick the base of the log, which to me doesn't seem to matter
much or make much sense, and you can pick the min and max, which do matter a great deal. I wish they allowed better control over tick spacing and labeling. Net result: a gain of at best 10% in log scale functionality. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "Gklass" wrote in message ... One improvement that isn't eye candy: The log scaling. (before you could only do base 10) Let me think of another one ... Thicker lines, well that is eye candy but it is nice On Jan 9, 4:49 pm, "Jon Peltier" wrote: Name one improvement that isn't eye candy. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. -http://PeltierTech.com _______ "dparizo" wrote in message ... I'm guessing it's you. :-) I think charting in Excel 2007 is greatly improved. |
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