Excel Area Chart with smooth lines possible?

[itchyII]

Hi Everyone,
Does anyone know if it is possible to create an area graph that has smooth lines instead of jagged ones? I've searched everywhere and can't find any information on it. I will explain what I am trying to achieve as maybe there is another way. I have many series of data. I plot them on a smooth line chart and it looks good. What I am trying to do is shade the area between the lowest and highest values on the chart. Basically, I want to show each line individually but highlight the range using a background shading. What I have done so far is created two new series of data which is the calculated lower bound and upper bound and then plotted them on the graph. I thought that if I could change the type for the lower and upper bounds to an area chart, then I could simulate the shading by using a color for the upper bound and white(my background color) for the lower bound. It works, but the area chart type only comes with jagged edges, so it doesn't look good. Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Can't help you with smoothing.

But I can with an apparent shading between the two lines.

Use 2 stacked area charts. With Stacked values, you mustmake sure that the upper value is correct -- possibly subtract the lower value from the upper. NO BORDER on BOTH, NO AREA on the lower chart.

Skip,
[sub]
Did you hear what happened when the OO programmer lost his library?...
He's now living in OBJECT poverty![/sub]

 

[xlhelp]

You could create dummy data for to create an appearance of smoothed area chart. That is, if you have enough points to plot, the chart would look smooth.

Member- AAAA Association Against Acronym Abusers

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Here's a walkthrough for a solution like Skip mentioned.

But there is no "smooth line" option for area charts.

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[SkipVought]

John,

"Here's a walkthrough ..."

Invisible link??? ;-)

Skip,
[sub]
Did you hear what happened when the OO programmer lost his library?...
He's now living in OBJECT poverty![/sub]

 

[AnotherHiggins]

hmmm. Let's try that again:

[!]HERE[/!] is a link

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[itchyII]

Thanks! I will keep this for reference. In the mean time, I have not found a solution. I may have to explore another app....

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Well, this wouldn't be interactive at all, but if you really, really, really must have smoothed lines and this is not something that will be updated often, then I suppose the following steps would work for you:

Do a screen print with the chart visible - this will create an image in the clipboard (it always has for me, using various screen capture software and even no screen capture software at all).

Then open an image editing program - MS Paint should work just fine.

Paste ([Ctrl]+[V]).

You should now have a .bmp image of your screen capture.

Trim off the menus and toolbars from the image.

Use the eyedropper tool to copy the color that you're using to fill between the lines. Use the fill tool to fill in gaps between the two lines.

I know it is far from elegant, but it should work in a pinch.


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[SkipVought]

itchyII,

SMOOTHING is only available in x-y chart types.

Check out this link

http://www.xlrotor.com/resources/files.shtml

Maybe you can generate points from this kind of calculation and use the generated data for your area charts.

Skip,
[sub]
Did you hear what happened when the OO programmer lost his library?...
He's now living in OBJECT poverty![/sub]