Can a bubble chart in excel have transparent bubbles? 1

[kidnos]

Does anyone know if there is a way to make the bubbles in a bubble chart (within excel) transparent? I have searched and tried to mess around with this myself and have had no luck... Thank you.

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

What version of Excel, please?

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[kidnos]

2003 - SP 3.

 

[SkipVought]

I have 2007, so I don;t know if 2003 has this feature.

Select the series in the chart.

Format Selection.

See if you can find in the format window, to make the FILL have some acceptable level of transparency. I can do it in 2007.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[xwb]

Right click on the bubble, Format Data Series...

On the format dialog, select fill effects. The problem is transparency is disabled. I don't know how you get it enabled but that is on Excel XP SP3.

 

[1726]

In the format data series dialog

Select Tab: Patterns

Set Area fill colour to: None

 

[kidnos]

Yes, I tried setting the fill color to none but that makes all the bubbles clear. I would like to have some color with transparency. I think it's an excel 2003 issue. I can't believe MSFT didnt think about that. Oh well.
Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[lionelhill]

xwb, if you go to the pattern tab and select a pattern (any pattern) then the transparency sliders become active in the sense you can drag them, but they always return instantly to zero, and don't apparently do anything.

Could it be that kidnos has found a corner of Excel-2003-world which never quite got finished?

 

[SkipVought]

The feature is operable in 2007.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[AndyPope]

In xl2003 you can use this technique to copy and paste a transparent oval to the series.

http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php/tip/creating_a_transparent_chart_series/

 

[lionelhill]

Strewth, AndyPope, it works! Despite the link saying it only works on bar-charts. You do, of course, have to make an oval autoshape, not a rectangle. Doesn't have to be circular.

You can, by analogy, make bubble charts with all sorts of silly shaped "bubbles"