mystery pie chart coloration

[johnwhite]

Hi guys,

simple but frustrating question. I have a worksheet which contains a pie chart sourced from four cells of data in another sheet.

the readings in the cells are (note i've put # in A for a reason):

A: #
B: 0
C: 0
D: 132

using the format tab on the ribbon i've assigned each of ABCD a color on the pie chart ranging from dark blue through light blue. So in this example I would expect the chart to be only the darkest and lightest blues as only A and D have numbers in them. Which is what happens most of the time....

For some reason, there are a few numbers which, when placed in entry cell A, change the colour of the related pie chart slice to a random intermediate blue. In the interests of bad science I have noted what happens when cell a has the following values entered:

1 - ok
2 - ok
3 - ok
4 - ok
5 - Changes colour
6 - ok
7 - ok
8 - ok
9 - changes colour
10 - ok
11 - changes colour
12 - changes colour
13 - ok
14 - changes colour
15 - changes colour
16 - ok
17 - ok
18 - changes colour
19 - ok
20 - ok
21 - changes colour
22 - changes colour
23 - ok
24 - ok
25 - changes colour
26 - ok
27 - ok
28 - changes colour
29 - ok
30 - changes colour

I'm absolutely stumped, can't really see a pattern in the data above, it's like excel has a mind of its own.

Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening - it's driving me insane.

Thanks so much in advance for your help,

John

 

[johnwhite]

Sorry for the bump, but would be great if anybody had any ideas on this one?

Thanks,

J

 

[Gerald Higgins]

I tried replicating this, and I don't get the same results. Colours don't change for me as I vary the value in A. I'm using 2003, what about you ?

 

[johnwhite]

Hi Gerald,

thanks for trying, I'm using 2007

John

 

[johnwhite]

Hi Gerald,

curiously enough when I try and replicate the error on a blank worksheet I can't do it either, which leads me to conclude it's maybe a different problem with the first worksheet.

I've looked everywhere and can't seem to spot anything unusual, the other pie charts on the page all behave as expected and are all sourced from similar sets of data.

Would it make a difference if the cells containing the data had formulae instead of absolute number values?

Thanks,

J

 

[Gerald Higgins]

Would it make a difference if the cells containing the data had formulae instead of absolute number values?

I don't think so...