J-Walk Chart Tools alternative?

[rd18010]

Back the Excel 2003 era, there was John Walkenbach's "J-Walk Chart Tools" add-in offered as a free part of the paid "Power Utility Pak" utility.
It was the module "Chart Report" that "Produces a detailed report that documents a chart, or produces a report that documents all charts."

That doesn't seem to be available any more.
Is there some modern alternative that can do a report of existing charts, for the purpose of analyzing and documenting a charts design?
E.g., if one downloads someone else's chart, and wants to see how it works.
I would only need to be a read-only type of tool, for information only, with no need to modify anything.

So, what else is out there, in this modern era of Excel 2019 and Microsoft (Office) 365?

 

[rd18010]

Trying charttools.xla gets an error message.

Silly me, reading the page contents, I see that the Chart Tools add-in is "Not compatible with Excel 2007."
Which is why it worked in Excel 2003 and not beyond.

 

[Jon Peltier]

I know this post was marked as solved over a year ago, but the solution mentions an old (but still available) add-in as a replacement for an old (no longer available) add-in to accomplish a feature that has been part of Excel for a decade or more (since Excel 2013 as I recall).

Select a series in the chart. Click the '+' icon, click the '>' next to Data Labels, and select More Options. In the task pane, select Value from Cells, then select the range that contains the labels you want to apply to the series. Select or deselect other options, and you're good to go.

 

[rd18010]

I'm the OP, and the main question was about a tool to document what it chart is and how it works, where the free for Excel 2003 "Chart Report" module in the "Power Utility Pak" product was something I found useful in that era, and then no longer needed charting until much later, when there was no separate free module, and the main product was no longer available for purchase.

Someone else introduced the Data Labels tool tangent, which later versions of Excel does have built in.

But a question I have about that, since this thread is more about that than my original question, is whether there are third party tools that do a better job of Data Labels than native Excel?

 

[Jon Peltier]

Better than Value from Cells?

 

[rd18010]

Better than Value from Cells?

Yes.

But I'm not currently working with charts, so don't recall the details of the others.

 

[Jon Peltier]

Yes.

But I'm not currently working with charts, so don't recall the details of the others.

Next time you're working with charts, try the built-in Value From Cells option for the data labels and see if it does what you need.

I dug out an old computer and checked out JWalk Chart Tools, and much of what it does has since been included in Excel or is no longer relevant.

Data Labels: Use 'Value From Cells' option.
Chart Size: on the Chart Format or Shape Format ribbon tab.
Picture: Easy to access from Home tab: Copy dropdown > Copy as Picture.
Text Size: Irrelevant, chart text works differently since Excel 2007.
Export: still no easy way to do this, but I've built it into my own chart software.
Chart Report: This seems to be the biggest gap. If people want it, I could roll something together.

 

[rd18010]

Chart Report: This seems to be the biggest gap. If people want it, I could roll something together.

Back in Jan 2023, I had another thread about this, Chart information reporting add-in?, where I posted that I'd contacted you directly about this, and we exchanged a few e-mails about the idea.

As for the better than Excel's labels "Value from Cells", my "to do" notes have, if I ever get back into charting again, something about a Charles Kyd newsletter item about a "noteworthy chart" that didn't seem to make it onto his blog, and since the newsletter was on a work computer I no longer have access to, and I wasn't able to get the content to my home computer, I don't recall what he did beyond what Excel itself could do.

As I said, I have no immediate need for this. Maybe no one else does, either.

But, as I've said, if I do get back into charting, having a Chart Report tool to look at other's charts, would be useful for looking at the examples I find, to see how they work.

 

[Jon Peltier]

I stumbled across your other post, and I vaguely recall our discussion. I'll see what I can do.

 

[Jon Peltier]

I contacted John Walkenbach and proposed that I publish an update to his Chart Tools, for the features that are still not built into Excel. Read about it here:
JWalk Chart Tools.

 

[rlv01]

Well done.