Better display of my pie charts

[tshad]

Is there a way to get a better image of my pie charts?

They are really stair stepped and when I put them in my Word Document of my
report it looks less than professional. Is there a way to get excel to
smooth the curves better?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Del Cotter]

Is there a way to get a better image of my pie charts?

They are really stair stepped and when I put them in my Word Document of my
report it looks less than professional. Is there a way to get excel to
smooth the curves better?

Some ideas:

1) Copy it as a Picture (i.e. vector format) instead of a Bitmap

or

2) expand the bitmap to double the size in Excel, and shrink it back to
half the size in Word

or

3) export a big bitmap to a good photo processor like Photo Shop (good
but expensive), Paint Shop Pro (cheaper - I bought it!), or GIMP (free,
I believe), and re-export at smaller size. Unlike Excel, these programs
handle anti-aliasing well for graphics as well as text.

or

4) Get Excel 2007, which is advertised as having better graphics, which
I would *hope* means they now have anti-aliasing of the graphics as well
as the fonts. ("anti-aliasing" is what programs do to avoid
stair-stepping in low-res graphics)

 

[Jon Peltier]

Another alternative would be to select a chart type more suited to
information display. A bar or column chart comes to mind. Since these show
data as a distance in one direction only, they are easier to interpret
quickly than the pie, which forces the reader to interpret angles or areas,
which studies show are less accurate interpretations.

- Jon

 

[tshad]

Actually, I just found that if I move the excel sheet to my Mac it looks
100% better. Which is strange since they are both Excel.

I also found that when I copy and paste the chart (or just move the chart
from the excel sheet to the Mac) there is NO stair stepping.

When I print it, it looks great. Nice curvy lines around the Mac.

Not sure why the PC can't do the same thing.

It is obviously not the copying that is the problem. In the Excel sheet on
the PC it looks the sam way (terrible). On the Mac, it looks great.

I guess I will be doing all my charting on the Mac and not the PC.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Del Cotter]

Actually, I just found that if I move the excel sheet to my Mac it looks
100% better. Which is strange since they are both Excel.

It's not so strange. I've never used Excel for Mac, but I understand it
has much better graphic quality, particularly in anti-aliasing of the
graph elements. I believe it also has features like the ability to
choose the stroke width of the lines around symbols and objects, because
the writers used the Mac's built-in graphics facilities. So Excel for
Mac really does have features that Excel for Windows lacks, they're not
exactly the same application.

 

[Jon Peltier]

It's not so strange. I've never used Excel for Mac, but I understand it
has much better graphic quality, particularly in anti-aliasing of the
graph elements. I believe it also has features like the ability to choose
the stroke width of the lines around symbols and objects, because the
writers used the Mac's built-in graphics facilities. So Excel for Mac
really does have features that Excel for Windows lacks, they're not
exactly the same application.

If you want programmability, however, only the PC version has the upgraded
VBA engine that shipped with Excel 2000. Macs use the older version that
Excel 97 included. In future, we hear that MS is planning to drop Mac VBA
support.

- Jon

 

[tshad]

It's not so strange. I've never used Excel for Mac, but I understand it
has much better graphic quality, particularly in anti-aliasing of the
graph elements. I believe it also has features like the ability to choose
the stroke width of the lines around symbols and objects, because the
writers used the Mac's built-in graphics facilities. So Excel for Mac
really does have features that Excel for Windows lacks, they're not
exactly the same application.

That was what I found out, also.

I found that text in the charts, such as titles, also display better on the
Mac.

Thanks,

Tom