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#1
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Chart REALLY needs to support more than 255 data series
(FWIW -- This posting is via MS "Suggestion" feature, in turn reached via
Excel's help... so at this point I am totally confused about what the heck is going to happen next -- submit suggestion? Post to usenet? Both??? Damned if I can tell from this UI.) Excel 2003 Chart continues to have a limit of 255 data series per chart, a rather surprising kind and size of limitation in 2005, given gazigabytes of memory etc. And a very nasty surprise if one has been counting on Chart to be at least modestly scalable. On big paper, with just a few points per series (generated via SQL query or macro), it's very easy to need possibly 1000's of series. Particular example here is for line charts and scatter charts (where each point occupies only small amount of space). |
#3
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Jerry -
MS now encourages the use of these groups to post suggestions directly to Microsoft. The Communities web access to these groups gives the option of posting a "Suggestion for Microsoft" directly as a group article. See the "-select new post-" dropdown at http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...x?dg=microsoft ..public.excel.charting&lang=en&cr=US So MS doesn't think this is a peer-to-peer group any more, though I see precious little evidence that they're not still treating it as another black hole. Once again, MS co-opting a perfectly good "standard" for its own purposes... In article , "Jerry W. Lewis" wrote: Presumably you intended to send this suggestion to Microsoft rather than to other users who have no power to act on it. This is a peer-to-peer newsgroup. Try http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp or e-mail to instead. |
#4
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Graham -
I have only once ever seen a chart with 255 series that was the least bit legible, and I fixed that one by helping the chart author combine many series with few points each into fewer series with many points. Is that an alternative for you? Since you mention a macro, perhaps you could format points different differently (not all points in a series need be the same). - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Peltier Technical Services Tutorials and Custom Solutions http://PeltierTech.com/ _______ Graham Wideman wrote: (FWIW -- This posting is via MS "Suggestion" feature, in turn reached via Excel's help... so at this point I am totally confused about what the heck is going to happen next -- submit suggestion? Post to usenet? Both??? Damned if I can tell from this UI.) Excel 2003 Chart continues to have a limit of 255 data series per chart, a rather surprising kind and size of limitation in 2005, given gazigabytes of memory etc. And a very nasty surprise if one has been counting on Chart to be at least modestly scalable. On big paper, with just a few points per series (generated via SQL query or macro), it's very easy to need possibly 1000's of series. Particular example here is for line charts and scatter charts (where each point occupies only small amount of space). |
#5
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Well -- that was interesting! I finally blundered into this NG, only to
discover that I had already posted here... inadvertantly as a result of logging a suggested improvement to Excel Chart... as noted by JE. Talk about an unclear UI on *that* process! Jon: Nice to hear from you... I have gained much from your very informative pages. And yes, after stewing about this for some days it did occur to me to use fewer Chart Series and use subgroups of points to form the many "actual" series that I need. FWIW, as a proportion of all charts drawn, these may not be the most numerous, however there *is* a need for many many series to plot raw data in experiments where one has a respectable number of subjects (ie: over 255 :-) and repeated measures (each subject has multi points). The natural fit is to have one subject = one Chart Series. This way attributes of the Series can represent attributes of the subject, such as Series name = subject Id, Series formatting used for subject attributes etc. Doing as you suggest is not *too* bad, but requires a bunch more programming to set formatting on Points, and other housekeeping to turn off connecting lines between last point of subject N and first point of subject N+1. Anyhow, you'll likely be hearing more from me on this subject, but right now I have to post another question on Chart trendline formatting... Thanks again, Graham -- --------------------------------------------------- Graham Wideman Microsoft Visio MVP --------------------------------------------------- Book/Tools: Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack Resources for programmable diagramming at: http://www.diagramantics.com "Jon Peltier" wrote in message ... Graham - I have only once ever seen a chart with 255 series that was the least bit legible, and I fixed that one by helping the chart author combine many series with few points each into fewer series with many points. Is that an alternative for you? Since you mention a macro, perhaps you could format points different differently (not all points in a series need be the same). - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Peltier Technical Services Tutorials and Custom Solutions http://PeltierTech.com/ |
#6
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Graham -
You can leave a blank row between subseries in a series' data range, and the connecting line will not be drawn. This must be a real blank, not a formula returning "" or NA() or anything else, because even "" in a cell means it isn't blank, it contains a short text string. - Jon ------- Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP Peltier Technical Services Tutorials and Custom Solutions http://PeltierTech.com/ _______ Graham Wideman wrote: Well -- that was interesting! I finally blundered into this NG, only to discover that I had already posted here... inadvertantly as a result of logging a suggested improvement to Excel Chart... as noted by JE. Talk about an unclear UI on *that* process! Jon: Nice to hear from you... I have gained much from your very informative pages. And yes, after stewing about this for some days it did occur to me to use fewer Chart Series and use subgroups of points to form the many "actual" series that I need. FWIW, as a proportion of all charts drawn, these may not be the most numerous, however there *is* a need for many many series to plot raw data in experiments where one has a respectable number of subjects (ie: over 255 :-) and repeated measures (each subject has multi points). The natural fit is to have one subject = one Chart Series. This way attributes of the Series can represent attributes of the subject, such as Series name = subject Id, Series formatting used for subject attributes etc. Doing as you suggest is not *too* bad, but requires a bunch more programming to set formatting on Points, and other housekeeping to turn off connecting lines between last point of subject N and first point of subject N+1. Anyhow, you'll likely be hearing more from me on this subject, but right now I have to post another question on Chart trendline formatting... Thanks again, Graham |
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