Create a Custom Chart

[fouts]

I see when there is an option for custom charts and you can select "user-defined". How does one go about creating a custom chart type?

What I want to do is have a bubble chart that has numbers in the middle of the bubble that do not correspond to the "size" of the bubble. Infact I want all the bubbles to be the same size, but the numbers will inside will be different. Thanks in advance.

[teebruin]

After you create your chart exactly the way that you want it: select the entire chart, right click and select chart type, go to custom types and click user-defined, and then click add.

[Mark W.]

On 2002-04-05 08:52, fouts wrote:
I see when there is an option for custom charts and you can select "user-defined". How does one go about creating a custom chart type?

What I want to do is have a bubble chart that has numbers in the middle of the bubble that do not correspond to the "size" of the bubble. Infact I want all the bubbles to be the same size, but the numbers will inside will be different. Thanks in advance.

The values displayed on a bubble chart are the y-axis values --- not the size of the bubble itself. The news is that you can have these values reference any cell on your worksheet so you can make 'em any value you want. The news is that these assignments aren't associated with a chart format so they can't be preserved as an aspect of the chart type.

[ This Message was edited by: Mark W. on 2002-04-05 09:28 ]

[fouts]

Thanks for your responses so far.

Actually you can change the data label for the bubbles to correspond to either the X-axis value, the Y axis value or bubble size. By selecting show label, show value, or show bubble size. What I want to do is have the label correspond to other values in the spread sheet? I don't see how I can do that. Is there a way to do it? Thats why I was wondering if I have to create a custom chart in order for that to work.

[Mark W.]

Actually you can change the data label for the bubbles to correspond to either the X-axis value, the Y axis value or bubble size. By selecting show label, show value, or show bubble size.

Ahh! You are sooo right...

What I want to do is have the label correspond to other values in the spread sheet? I don't see how I can do that. Is there a way to do it? Thats why I was wondering if I have to create a custom chart in order for that to work.

You have to select each label and type (in the formula bar) a reference to the cell of interest. As you might well imagine this is a time-consuming, manual exercise which cannot be preserved as part of a custom chart format.

Rob Bovey has an excellent add-in (see http://www.xl-logic.com/pages/addins.html) that simplifies this process for XY Scatter charts. Don't know if it'll work for Bubble charts as well.

BTW, if you don't care about the size of the bubble why aren't you using an XY Scatter chart with an large data marker?

[ This Message was edited by: Mark W. on 2002-04-05 09:51 ]