Bar chart help needed!

[gkisystems]

I would like to create a chart that looks like this:
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6536/visualizationchallenge.gif
How do I do it?

 

[pgc01]

Hi

The general idea is simple, but you must be prepared to do some work if you want to do this type of chart. Jon Peltier explains here how to:

Stacked Charts With Vertical Separation

The example is for vertical columns but if you study it you may be able to adapt the vertical columns example to your horizontal bars.

 

[gkisystems]

Hi

The general idea is simple, but you must be prepared to do some work if you want to do this type of chart. Jon Peltier explains here how to:

Stacked Charts With Vertical Separation

The example is for vertical columns but if you study it you may be able to adapt the vertical columns example to your horizontal bars.

Im actually more curious about how to lay one bar chart on top of the other except the bar in the background is wider. I know how to make the bars overlap, but I'm not sure how to make the bars in the background be fatter than the bars in the foreground.

 

[pgc01]

Hi

To lay one series on top of the other send one of them to the secondary axis.
To make the bars of one of the series wider, select the series and play with the Gap Width value.

 

[gkisystems]

Hi

To lay one series on top of the other send one of them to the secondary axis.
To make the bars of one of the series wider, select the series and play with the Gap Width value.

Okay - that definitely works, thank you for that! However, my follow-up question is how do I set the secondary axis to be exactly equal to the primary axis? I need to do this because on one axis I have my actuals (some of them are negative) and the other axis I have my budget (all positive). So, the bars are not lining up properly.

 

[pgc01]

If your offsets are correct, you just have to make sure that the minimum and maximum values in both primary and secondary axes are the same.

 

[gkisystems]

If your offsets are correct, you just have to make sure that the minimum and maximum values in both primary and secondary axes are the same.

Is there a macro you can direct me towards that would automatically set my max and min values each time the macro is executed? I'm looking for a macro to do this because the report needs to be run daily and the numbers change daily. The goal is to avoid manually updating the primary/secondary axis.


I would want the macro to:


1. Look at the min value of both primary and secondary axis
2. Look at the max value of both the primary and secondary axis
3. Set the lowest min value and highest max value to be the same for both primary and secondary axis.


For reference purposes, this is a bar chart with the bars going left/right (not up/down).

 

[pgc01]

Is there a macro you can direct me towards that would automatically set my max and min values each time the macro is executed?

I'm sorry, I also don't remember seeing one that would do it.
I hope you'll be lucky and find one. If not you or someone else will have to write one.