Comments on: Excel Line Chart – Legend Versus Data Label

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:45:30 +0000

Playing catch up again, but I agree that Walkenbach’s books are very approach for Excel users at all levels. VBA is often perceived as an advanced topic, but a few simple scripts — including the chart series labeler Jon posted her — ease the pain of tedious tasks and excelerate the users skill-level.

To quote you, Tony: “[T]ry new things and practice them to improve your value over time! There are always opportunities to learn new ideas, approaches, tactics, etc. to add to your toolkit.”

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:50:27 +0000

IMO it’s better to use a book, but that might just be my learning style. John Walkenbach’s books (Power Programming is his) are well written, with good examples, and clear explanations.

When I have a specific question, I’ve found that Google is a good resource.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:48:22 +0000

@Jon. Thanks for sharing the links. Your list of 9 steps is excellent and number nine does talk about this issue.

I like the follow up post on labeling the last point of a series using VBA script, but I think that will be beyond most casual users of Excel. I would venture to say that 90% of Excel users wouldn’t know what VBA even stands for.

I think a good resource on VBA is a book called: Excel Power Programming with VBA.

Do you or anyone else know a good resource for learning more about VBA for the readers here?

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:16:36 +0000

This was item 9 in my 9 Steps to Simpler Chart Formatting, and I subsequently shared a VBA procedure to Label [the last point of] Each Series in a Chart. The procedure is good for changing data: it starts with the last point of each series, adds a label, then strips away any labels on earlier points.