Hi,

I'm working on a template to analyze restuarant menus. I am building a chart
(Stacked Bar) showing the prices of the items along the X axis, with the
column heights being the relative popularity of the items sold at that price.
I need the stacks because some prices can obviously be the same for different
menu items, and I need to show the popularity not just of the price, but of
each menu item as well.

I uploaded a screenshot of the chart as it stands now if you want to take a
look:
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.p...ux56g1&thumb=4

My source data looks like this:
A-total B C D E
2% 2%
24% 3% 10% 9% 2%
15% 10% 5%
21% 5% 9% 2% 5%
7% 7%
7% 2% 5%
23% 10% 5% 8%

Column A is the total percentage, and is the overall height of each bar. The
BCDE values are each menu item's sales popularity. (it is a dynamic range
which can expand both down & to the right depending on the # of menu items
and the # of different prices)

I have gotten so far as to display the % of each menu item in their
respective stacks, but showing the name of the items would be much more
useful. Can I assign a staggered row range, identical in shape to the data
range, to be the data labels?

Another problem is that I can't seem to separate each column so that the
data range in my spreadsheet's Columns B, C, D, and E, are not formatted all
the same -- there is no sequence or pattern betweeen menu prices, and the way
Excel colors all the stacks at the same "level" the same inhibits
understanding the meaning of the chart.

I'd like to color the stacks randomly, or maybe use two alternating colors
from one stacked bar to another, perhaps alternating a pattern between the
individual stacks in a bar.

Is a Stacked Bar the wrong choice? Should I combine a stacked bar with
something else? I've considered embedding the chart into a worksheet with the
menu item names being displayed beneath the chart in approximately the same
"shape" as the stacked bar. I've even considered trying to display the menu
item names in cells and trying to figure out how to size the cell heights
according to their percentages, but could be some serious "common
denominator" crunching... not cool at all!

Any suggestions?

Thank you very much!