Selection accuracy in Excel charts 1

[RobBroekhuis]

Hi all,
Something that frustrates me to no end is the way Excel 2007 doesn't allow me to select the item I want in a chart - for example, when a trend runs close to an axis, clicking on the trend selects the axis instead. Individually selecting two trends that run close together is often impossible - I often find myself manually modifying (corrupting!) the data to introduce an outlier point that's easier to select. Is there a setting I missed that tells Excel how fine-grained its point-and-click selection process should be?

Rob

 

[xlhelp]

I face similar problem often. What I do is select anything that the mouse grabs and then cycle trough the selections using down (or up) arrow.

A man has only two choices: He can be right or he can be happy.

 

[lionelhill]

If you do a lot of charts, have you considered getting a better graph drawing package? I use Sigmaplot, but I'm sure there are very many others out there. Frankly I've never been impressed with Excel's graph-plotting, but it doesn't bother me much as I get out of Excel as soon as I've done the calculations...

 

[RobBroekhuis]

xlhelp, I forgot you could do that - thanks for jogging my memory
Yeah, I know there are better charting packages out there, but I'm constantly interacting with the data in a what-if mode, so I really need the plot inside the tool itself.

Rob

 

[lionelhill]

Some of the tools out there do embed into Excel...
But I agree, if all you need is a quick what-if plot, then Excel is quick and easy.