The Microsoft.NET Framework 4 web installer package downloads and installs the.NET Framework components required to run on the target machine architecture and OS. Download the latest from Windows, Windows Apps, Office, Xbox, Skype, Windows 10, Lumia phone, Edge & Internet Explorer, Dev Tools & more. Tips and information on Visual Basic programming. Expert strategies for programmers in graphics, database, internet, user interface design, optimization, controls.What happened to my favorite Excel 2. Chart feature? I came across an article on Microsoft’s web site, What happened to my favorite Excel 2. Chart feature? Normally I just roll my eyes at these articles, but this one caught my attention, and I decided to address some of the items from the article. The article begins: The improvements to charts in Office Excel 2. You can now create professional- looking charts with special effects, such as realistic 3- D, transparency, and soft shadows. I’ll leave aside (for now) discussions of professional looks and realistic 3- D. But many of the other items deserve attention. The article says, “Because of these changes, certain features that worked one way in Excel 2. Excel 2. 00. 7 or require alternative approaches to create similar results. Here’s an up- to- date summary of those Excel 2. Excel 2. 00. 7 and how to get those similar results.” The article tabulates these differences in a table of features, 9. I will use a similar format, using portions of the article text to describe features and behavior in 9. Feature: Simultaneous resizing of multiple charts. You can change the size of multiple charts simultaneously. You must change the size of each chart individually. Jon: The second item on the page, and it’s wrong. You can select multiple charts and resize them together, either with the mouse or with the Size group on the Drawing Tools > Format ribbon tab. In fact, this is actually easier in 2. In 2. 00. 3 the cursor doesn’t change, so you have to take it on faith that your actions will resize the charts. What is confusing about Excel 2. In 2. 00. 3 and earlier, when the chart is activated, small black handles appear on the corners and edges of the chart. When the chart’s container object is selected, small white handles appear on its corners and edges. In 2. 00. 7, no matter whether the chart is activated or the chart’s container is selected, the same awkward, thick border is displayed. Feature: Using pattern fills in chart elements (for black- and- white printing and to improve readability for the visually- impaired)9. You can use pattern fills in chart elements. Instead of pattern fills in chart elements, you can use picture and texture fills. Charts with pattern fills that were created in an earlier version of Excel appear the same when they are opened in Excel 2. Jon: Patterns are still available in VBA, and there are already at least two add- ins to add back this capability. Andy Pope has a nice Pattern Fill Add- In which applies fill patterns to chart elements and to shapes. Feature: Sizing charts with the window. You can use the Size with window command to automatically resize charts that are located on chart sheets when you change the size of the window. Instead of the Size with window command, you can use the Zoom to Selection command to achieve similar results. Jon: Losing Size with Window removes a lot of critical functionality, including the ability to show full- window charts, and the ability to use mouse- position- based chart events on chart sheets. Zoom to Selection is a woefully inadequate substitute for Size with Window. I have had clients who could no longer use previously successful utilities because of this change to Excel 2. Feature: Copying charts to Microsoft Office Word 2. Microsoft Office Power. Point 2. 00. 79. 7- 2. By default, a copied chart is pasted as a picture in an Office Word 2. Office Power. Point 2. By default, a copied chart is pasted in an Office Word 2. Office Power. Point 2. Excel chart. You can change the way that a copied chart is pasted by clicking the Paste Options button that is displayed when you paste the chart, and then pasting the chart as a picture or an entire workbook. Jon: In Excel 2. 00. VBA, regardless of the Paste Option used. You can regain the familiar OLE behavior and access the inserted Excel object in VBA if you insert the chart from a file. Feature: Direct manipulation of data points on charts. You can drag data points on a chart and change their source values on the worksheet. Dragging data points to change the source values on the worksheet is no longer supported. Jon: I rarely used this feature, so I didn’t think it was a big deal to have it deprecated. I have to admit being surprised by how many users miss this feature. Feature: Drag and drop data. You can add data to a chart by selecting the data in the worksheet and dragging it onto the chart. You can no longer drag data from a worksheet to a chart. You can use other methods to add data to a chart. Jon: This is no loss. It has always been more reliable to copy the data and use Paste Special to add the data to the chart. This still works fine in Excel 2. Feature: Built- in custom chart types. Several built- in custom chart types are installed with Excel. There are no built- in custom chart types, however, you can easily create your own custom chart types, by saving your favorite charts as chart templates. Jon: “Built- in custom”, one of my favorite oxymorons. The absence of these chart types is no big loss. In earlier versions of Excel, users discovered these types, and presumed that combination charts were limited to whatever they could find in this part of the Chart Type dialog. In general, it’s better in Excel 2. In fact, the absence of these chart types is a positive thing. Microsoft has changed the way users can save custom chart formatting. The Excel 2. 00. 3 approach stored all of a user’s custom charts in a hidden user gallery workbook. This approach makes it difficult to share custom charts among users, and I’ve found this gallery workbook to be prone to corruption. The Excel 2. 00. 7 technique saves each custom chart as a separate chart template file. These are more reliable, and can be shared between users (and I believe between Office applications). Feature: Grouping and selecting shapes. Shapes are drawn in a format that differs from the shape format that is used in Excel 2. Shapes that are drawn in earlier versions of Excel cannot be grouped with shapes that are drawn in Excel 2. You cannot select shapes that are created in different versions of Excel at the same time. Shapes that are created in different versions of Excel are layered on top of current shapes. To select the current charts, use the chart element selection box (Chart Tools, Format tab, Current Selection group). To select hidden charts or shapes that were created in an earlier version of Excel, you must first add the Select Multiple Objects command to the Quick Access Toolbar. JP: Not only are shapes from different generations of Excel treated differently for grouping, they are also placed in different Z order positions. Adding a shape or picture, followed by. Set My. Shape = Active. Sheet. Shapes(Active. Sheet. Shapes. Count). Feature: Record chart shapes and shape formatting in a macro. You can record changes to chart shapes and formatting in a macro. You cannot record changes to chart shapes and formatting in a macro. Jon: This is a severe loss in functionality. Power. Point 2. 00. Microsoft knowledge base article 9. You cannot record new shapes, shape formatting, and shape effects by using the macro recorder in Excel 2. This behavior is by design.” I suspect it’s more a matter of triage, redeploying scarce resources to prepare Office 2. Release to Manufacturing. I can’t believe anyone would consciously redesign a serious product in this way. The article suggests, “To work around this behavior, use Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code to format the shapes. In Visual Basic Editor, click Object Browser on the View menu to find the correct objects, methods, and properties that are used in VBA code.”Hello? Has anybody tried to decipher the new object model branch related to formatting of the new shapes and chart elements? At least Young and Champollion had the Rosetta Stone. I find this new content in the Object Browser inscrutible and the examples less than useless. In the past, when the Object Browser was hard to interpret, one could at least record a macro to help resolve the syntax behind the object model. Extended Summary. There have been a lot of changes to the charting infrastructure in Excel 2. The highly touted formatting features are not an improvement, but a distraction (see Steven Few’s review in Excel’s New Charting Engine — Preview of an Opportunity Missed). I believe that these gaudy formatting options are partly responsible for the order- of- magnitude increase in chart redraw times (see Excel 2. Chart Performance – Revisited). A few of the changes to Excel 2. The over- antialiasing of Excel 2. I have covered elsewhere, gets mixed reviews. I give it a thumbs down, but some respected commentors like it. A related issue, which I have not covered in detail but the Power. Point FAQ website and several online forums have, is that a metafile produced from an Excel 2. Excel 2. 00. 3 chart can be. A few of the changes to Excel 2. The way new and old shapes are treated, and the way pasted charts are accommodated in Power. Point and Word, cause problems. Many users are hobbled by the removal of the ability to drag points on a chart to change the underlying data. Removing UI access to pattern fills was a small decrease in capabilities. Two features covered here are particularly unfortunate. Losing the ability to size a chart with the active window was a surprising change, and has broken a number of existing routines. The inability to record formatting actions in a macro ties the hands of programmers who need to understand the changes to the object model, and users who are just trying to make their lives easier. Removal of the familiar menu/toolbar user interface in favor of a new ribbon/tab interface has drawn a great deal of criticism. In principle the ribbon interface should be an improvement, but experienced users have had to retrain themselves in tasks that shouldn’t have to be relearned. A detriment of the new interface is the much lower density of controls visible at any time, and the inability to change the interface through the interface.
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