The bars on my bar graph aren't of even widths.

[steve case]

That's my graph of some random numbers sorted.
It's a screen shot of a 50% Zoom and the X axis is ~424 pixels wide.
I've been playing with different zooms 51% 52% etc and the Gap and
overlap commands. Is there any way to tell Excel at the pixel level
what the widths of columns and spaces are to be?

 

[DataBlake]

try this solution

Help! My Excel Chart Columns are too Skinny « projectwoman.com

projectwoman.com

 

[steve case]

try this solution

Help! My Excel Chart Columns are too Skinny « projectwoman.com

projectwoman.com

Thanks for the reply - yes changing to text as the link says, does some interesting
things but doesn't produce bars with even widths. Or at least couldn't make
it do that.

I did that graphically by making the X axis 450 pixels wide so the bars are two
pixels wide and the gaps just one.

 

[steve case]

My problem is I'm running up against the resolution of the electronic image.
I will have to come up with a method to display my data in some other format.
100+ columns across a small 640x480 pixel image is asking too much.

 

[DataBlake]

100+ columns across a small 640x480 pixel image is asking too much.

what happens when you make the size of the bar area divisible by the bars?
could it be a case that excel is compensating for an uneven pixel ratio?
i.e if you're trying to fit 115 bars evenly into a 160 pixel wide space i don't imagine that would be "even" whereas if you had 230 pixel wide each bar could be a pixel wide with a pixel in between etc
may not be the "small-ness" of the image thats the issue

 

[steve case]

what happens when you make the size of the bar area divisible by the bars?
could it be a case that excel is compensating for an uneven pixel ratio?
i.e if you're trying to fit 115 bars evenly into a 160 pixel wide space i don't imagine that would be "even" whereas if you had 230 pixel wide each bar could be a pixel wide with a pixel in between etc
may not be the "small-ness" of the image thats the issue

Thanks for the reply.

What happens when you make the size of the bar area divisible by the bars?

That is exactly what I need to do, so if I have 140 lines of data,
how do I make the X axis exactly 420 pixels wide? If Excel has
an input box for that, I haven't found it yet.

A view of 100% is ~854 pixels* maybe there's someplace you can
get the exact number, I'm doing a print screen and watching the
cursor count on Microsoft Photo Editor. In any case 420/854
comes to 49.18. . .% and the View Tab magnification Custom: [ ]
box only allows inputs of whole numbers. and 49.2 is accepted
as 49. So unless there's some other way. . . . .

What I would need, and doubt that it's there somewhere, is an input
box that asks for bar width and gap width in number of pixels.

Thanks for all your help

*The length of a grid line on the chart

 

[DataBlake]

That is exactly what I need to do, so if I have 140 lines of data,
how do I make the X axis exactly 420 pixels wide? If Excel has
an input box for that, I haven't found it yet.

A view of 100% is ~854 pixels*

The problem herein lies within trying to calculate based on your own monitor aspect ratio and whether excel accounts for x and y axis space.
1. What is your monitor's resolution?
2. What exact bar graph/formatting settings are applied (pictures please)
3. I assume you've tried already to use the formatting menus to resize your graph?

 

[steve case]

You assumed wrong, I'm an [F11] user, select a column of date, press [F11] and voila up comes a graph.
But I did search for the the formatting and found it under Chart Tools - Format tab - Size [Height] & [Width]
The selections for width are tenths of a inch which butts up against the resolution problem.

I want to stop this dialog, the basic issue trying to jam too much detail into too small a space.
I stated as much in Post #4 above. There are lots of ways to do things in this world and I will
find something other an Excel bar graph to do it.

Thanks for all your help

Best regards,
Steve Case - Milwaukee, WI