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#1
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Pie Charts - Scaling
I have a boss that insists that it is possible to create a pie chart, and
then create another chart that is to scale of that chart. For example, I am attempting to create a chart about revenues. Revenue essentially increased 52% between 2007 and 2008. He wants me to create a pie chart for 2007, and then another chart for 2008 that is exactly 52% bigger. Is this possible to do automatically? I feel like it isn't, but he is really stressing that it has to be possible. |
#2
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Pie Charts - Scaling
On Tue, 3 Jun 2008, in microsoft.public.excel.charting,
MK said: I have a boss that insists that it is possible to create a pie chart, and then create another chart that is to scale of that chart. For example, I am attempting to create a chart about revenues. Revenue essentially increased 52% between 2007 and 2008. He wants me to create a pie chart for 2007, and then another chart for 2008 that is exactly 52% bigger. Is this possible to do automatically? I feel like it isn't, but he is really stressing that it has to be possible. Abusive managers are a source of many of the questions that turn up here! He's wrong about Excel, there's no built-in way to condition the diameters of two pie charts on data in cells. I would strongly suggest you just do it by hand and don't tell him. How is he going to know by looking? If you have to have an automatic solution, try some of the special VBA programming tricks used by Andy Pope and Ed Ferrero. Andy's programme sizes pie charts according to the sum of their values, and Ed's programme turns the bubbles of a bubble chart into pies. Then you can create a bubble chart with two bubbles, one 52% bigger than the other. http://www.andypope.info/charts/piesizer.htm http://www.edferrero.com/ExcelCharts...2/Default.aspx -- Del Cotter NB Personal replies to this post will send email to , which goes to a spam folder-- please send your email to del3 instead. |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Pie Charts - Scaling
Hi,
He maybe confusing the Pie of Pie chart type and bubble charts. Anyhow the relationship described is not a built-in feature of any chart. Using pie charts is not normally a good idea but to then size on against another make the problems of reading pies even worse. Cheers Andy MK wrote: I have a boss that insists that it is possible to create a pie chart, and then create another chart that is to scale of that chart. For example, I am attempting to create a chart about revenues. Revenue essentially increased 52% between 2007 and 2008. He wants me to create a pie chart for 2007, and then another chart for 2008 that is exactly 52% bigger. Is this possible to do automatically? I feel like it isn't, but he is really stressing that it has to be possible. -- Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel http://www.andypope.info |
#4
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Pie Charts - Scaling
Haha, that would be nice to do it by hand and tell him it was automatic. The
only problem is that he wants an automatic way for when I leave. I'm an intern, so when I leave, they are going to have to figure out how to do it by hand rather than just throw it my way, which is a problem for them. "Del Cotter" wrote: On Tue, 3 Jun 2008, in microsoft.public.excel.charting, MK said: I have a boss that insists that it is possible to create a pie chart, and then create another chart that is to scale of that chart. For example, I am attempting to create a chart about revenues. Revenue essentially increased 52% between 2007 and 2008. He wants me to create a pie chart for 2007, and then another chart for 2008 that is exactly 52% bigger. Is this possible to do automatically? I feel like it isn't, but he is really stressing that it has to be possible. Abusive managers are a source of many of the questions that turn up here! He's wrong about Excel, there's no built-in way to condition the diameters of two pie charts on data in cells. I would strongly suggest you just do it by hand and don't tell him. How is he going to know by looking? If you have to have an automatic solution, try some of the special VBA programming tricks used by Andy Pope and Ed Ferrero. Andy's programme sizes pie charts according to the sum of their values, and Ed's programme turns the bubbles of a bubble chart into pies. Then you can create a bubble chart with two bubbles, one 52% bigger than the other. http://www.andypope.info/charts/piesizer.htm http://www.edferrero.com/ExcelCharts...2/Default.aspx -- Del Cotter NB Personal replies to this post will send email to , which goes to a spam folder-- please send your email to del3 instead. |
#5
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Pie Charts - Scaling
As you've been reassured, there's no automatic way to do this. With a little
code you can do anything, but the question is, should you? Tufte once wrote something like, "The only thing worse than one pie chart is several of them." Is the second chart supposed to be 52% larger by area, or by diameter? Human cognition is only about 70% as good at judging areal dimensions as linear dimensions, so whichever you choose (by area or by diameter) it will not ever be accurately interpreted. Stacked bar or column charts are not generally a good choice either, but I suspect if you had two stacks, using actual revenues for each year, the relative difference in height between the two stacks would be obvious. Worried about not being able to judge percentages of the individual items in the stack? Well, except for 50% and 25%, you can't really judge percentages in a pie chart either, you've been fooled into thinking that you can. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Tutorials and Custom Solutions Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com _______ "MK" wrote in message ... I have a boss that insists that it is possible to create a pie chart, and then create another chart that is to scale of that chart. For example, I am attempting to create a chart about revenues. Revenue essentially increased 52% between 2007 and 2008. He wants me to create a pie chart for 2007, and then another chart for 2008 that is exactly 52% bigger. Is this possible to do automatically? I feel like it isn't, but he is really stressing that it has to be possible. |
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