I have Excel 2007. A colleague saw a line chart with vertical lines in the
plot area, and each resulting rectangular area in the plot area had its own
gradient fill. Each vertical rectangle/gradient was identical. He is asking
me if this is do-able in Excel.

I have been looking into plot area gradients in 2007, and so far I haven't
found a way to apply a gradient fill for each major vertical line rectangle
of the plot area.

Chart type is 2D line chart with primary vertical major gridlines. Do I
need to look at a different chart type in order to accomplish this? I can't
believe that the creator would have gone to the trouble of inserting
individual rectangles with gradients into each of the vertical plot
rectangles.

TIA,
Steve

Hi,

You can use a dummy series, plotted as column chart type, to mimic the
look. You will need to fix the maximum Y axis value in order to get the
columns to reach the top of the plot area. Set the column series values
to be the same as the max value.
You can then select the series and change the Gap Width to zero.
Now select the first column and format the gradient fill. Repeat
formatting for each individual point in the series.

Cheers
Andy

Steve Vincent wrote:
I have Excel 2007. A colleague saw a line chart with vertical lines in the
plot area, and each resulting rectangular area in the plot area had its own
gradient fill. Each vertical rectangle/gradient was identical. He is asking
me if this is do-able in Excel.

I have been looking into plot area gradients in 2007, and so far I haven't
found a way to apply a gradient fill for each major vertical line rectangle
of the plot area.

Chart type is 2D line chart with primary vertical major gridlines. Do I
need to look at a different chart type in order to accomplish this? I can't
believe that the creator would have gone to the trouble of inserting
individual rectangles with gradients into each of the vertical plot
rectangles.

TIA,
Steve

--

Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel
http://www.andypope.info

Andy,

Thank you for the tip. I thought about doing that, but didn't because I
wasn't coming up with how to show a line chart over the top of the bar chart?
I did creat a dummy chart and formatted each bar with a gradient, with zero
gap. It definitely has the look I'm going for. But now... what about the
actual line chart with the real data line and points? How can I make that
overlay the faux bar chart?

TIA, again,
Steve


"Andy Pope" wrote:

Hi,

You can use a dummy series, plotted as column chart type, to mimic the
look. You will need to fix the maximum Y axis value in order to get the
columns to reach the top of the plot area. Set the column series values
to be the same as the max value.
You can then select the series and change the Gap Width to zero.
Now select the first column and format the gradient fill. Repeat
formatting for each individual point in the series.

Cheers
Andy

Steve Vincent wrote:
I have Excel 2007. A colleague saw a line chart with vertical lines in the
plot area, and each resulting rectangular area in the plot area had its own
gradient fill. Each vertical rectangle/gradient was identical. He is asking
me if this is do-able in Excel.

I have been looking into plot area gradients in 2007, and so far I haven't
found a way to apply a gradient fill for each major vertical line rectangle
of the plot area.

Chart type is 2D line chart with primary vertical major gridlines. Do I
need to look at a different chart type in order to accomplish this? I can't
believe that the creator would have gone to the trouble of inserting
individual rectangles with gradients into each of the vertical plot
rectangles.

TIA,
Steve

--

Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel
http://www.andypope.info
.

Found my own answer -- create it as a clustered column chart, then change the
"real" data series to line chart with markers.

Thanks again Andy, your advice led me down the right path!

Steve

"Steve Vincent" wrote:

Andy,

Thank you for the tip. I thought about doing that, but didn't because I
wasn't coming up with how to show a line chart over the top of the bar chart?
I did creat a dummy chart and formatted each bar with a gradient, with zero
gap. It definitely has the look I'm going for. But now... what about the
actual line chart with the real data line and points? How can I make that
overlay the faux bar chart?

TIA, again,
Steve


"Andy Pope" wrote:

Hi,

You can use a dummy series, plotted as column chart type, to mimic the
look. You will need to fix the maximum Y axis value in order to get the
columns to reach the top of the plot area. Set the column series values
to be the same as the max value.
You can then select the series and change the Gap Width to zero.
Now select the first column and format the gradient fill. Repeat
formatting for each individual point in the series.

Cheers
Andy

Steve Vincent wrote:
I have Excel 2007. A colleague saw a line chart with vertical lines in the
plot area, and each resulting rectangular area in the plot area had its own
gradient fill. Each vertical rectangle/gradient was identical. He is asking
me if this is do-able in Excel.

I have been looking into plot area gradients in 2007, and so far I haven't
found a way to apply a gradient fill for each major vertical line rectangle
of the plot area.

Chart type is 2D line chart with primary vertical major gridlines. Do I
need to look at a different chart type in order to accomplish this? I can't
believe that the creator would have gone to the trouble of inserting
individual rectangles with gradients into each of the vertical plot
rectangles.

TIA,
Steve

--

Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel
http://www.andypope.info
.