Peter sends in a question that relates back to Episode 444. In that podcast, I showed how to change the gap width in Excel 2003 to have two columns stacked on top of each other. Peter wonders how to do this in Excel 2007. This is a great opportunity to show off a change in Excel 2007s charting engine. While Excel 2003 required you to open and close the Format dialog box repeatedly, you can now format everything on the chart from the new modeless Format dialog box in Excel 2007. Episode 538 shows you how!
Transcript of the video:
Hey! All right, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen.
I just got back from a week at the beach, I was at Stone Harbor, New Jersey.
So, I'm trying to catch up on all the email that came in during the last week .
If You have a question for the podcast though, please feel free to drop us an email or leave me a voicemail and we'll get to you.
The question that came in today goes all the way back to podcast 444.
They said, "Hey! You showed us how to create this really cool chart back in Excel 2003.
I'm trying to create the exact same thing in Excel 2007, where the columns actually line up with each other." Let's take a quick look at the comparison between Excel 2003 and 2007 charting.
In Excel 2003 if we wanted to format something we would click it for example, here's the actual series and then right-click choose Format Data Series or just hit [ ctrl 1 ] and we would be able to access a dialog box to format that.
We would format this series, close the dialog box choose the blue series, format that, and just go back and forth between the chart and the format dialog box.
In Excel 2007, they've completely rewritten the charting engine.
So, we can create a chart with one click, its [ Alt+F1 ], now to create the chart and again I want to go through the exact same steps in Excel 2003, I want to format the actual series.
So, I click on the actual series, I can either right click and choose Format, hit [ ctrl 1 ] as before or on the Layout or Format tab choose this button called Format Selection.
Now, the dialog boxes have changed considerably, all the options are still there.
They've been rearranged.
I want to move that to the secondary axis as we did before and then I also want to increase the gap width.
So, I do both of those items and you'll see back there in our preview, now the bars are on top of each other and the red bar is narrower than the blue bar.
The great thing about Excel 2007 charts though is, I don't have to close the dialog box and return to the chart in order to format something else.
For example, if I want to now format the numbers along the right-hand axis, I can just reach behind the dialog box, click on those and the dialog box now changes to show me all the options for that right hand access.
Now, back in Podcast 444, we set the minimum and maximum to be exactly the same, on both sides.
So that way the numbers are on the same scale, so we'll go from 0 to 3000 on the left-hand axis.
Again, I don't have to close the dialog box.
Just move it out of the way, click the left hand access, make sure I make the exact same settings there, from 0 to 3000 and click [ close ].
So, it's possible to do the exact same thing in Excel 2007.
It's just the dialog boxes have been rearranged a little bit.
Although, the one great new thing in Excel 2007 is, once you show the Format dialog box, you never have to close it to go back to the chart, you can Just click something else in the chart and the Format dialog box automatically changes.
A great enhancement in Excel 2007.
Hey thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
I'm Bill Jelen.
I just got back from a week at the beach, I was at Stone Harbor, New Jersey.
So, I'm trying to catch up on all the email that came in during the last week .
If You have a question for the podcast though, please feel free to drop us an email or leave me a voicemail and we'll get to you.
The question that came in today goes all the way back to podcast 444.
They said, "Hey! You showed us how to create this really cool chart back in Excel 2003.
I'm trying to create the exact same thing in Excel 2007, where the columns actually line up with each other." Let's take a quick look at the comparison between Excel 2003 and 2007 charting.
In Excel 2003 if we wanted to format something we would click it for example, here's the actual series and then right-click choose Format Data Series or just hit [ ctrl 1 ] and we would be able to access a dialog box to format that.
We would format this series, close the dialog box choose the blue series, format that, and just go back and forth between the chart and the format dialog box.
In Excel 2007, they've completely rewritten the charting engine.
So, we can create a chart with one click, its [ Alt+F1 ], now to create the chart and again I want to go through the exact same steps in Excel 2003, I want to format the actual series.
So, I click on the actual series, I can either right click and choose Format, hit [ ctrl 1 ] as before or on the Layout or Format tab choose this button called Format Selection.
Now, the dialog boxes have changed considerably, all the options are still there.
They've been rearranged.
I want to move that to the secondary axis as we did before and then I also want to increase the gap width.
So, I do both of those items and you'll see back there in our preview, now the bars are on top of each other and the red bar is narrower than the blue bar.
The great thing about Excel 2007 charts though is, I don't have to close the dialog box and return to the chart in order to format something else.
For example, if I want to now format the numbers along the right-hand axis, I can just reach behind the dialog box, click on those and the dialog box now changes to show me all the options for that right hand access.
Now, back in Podcast 444, we set the minimum and maximum to be exactly the same, on both sides.
So that way the numbers are on the same scale, so we'll go from 0 to 3000 on the left-hand axis.
Again, I don't have to close the dialog box.
Just move it out of the way, click the left hand access, make sure I make the exact same settings there, from 0 to 3000 and click [ close ].
So, it's possible to do the exact same thing in Excel 2007.
It's just the dialog boxes have been rearranged a little bit.
Although, the one great new thing in Excel 2007 is, once you show the Format dialog box, you never have to close it to go back to the chart, you can Just click something else in the chart and the Format dialog box automatically changes.
A great enhancement in Excel 2007.
Hey thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
