camera tool dashboard printing problem

J

jenmoocat

Hi.

I am using the camera tool to create a complex dashboard in Excel
2003, using Windows XP (service pack 3)

One example of something that I am using the camera to take a picture
of is:
A two-slice annotated pie chart in cells A1:D15, with a AutoShape
big arrow in E8:G8, pointing to a complex, annotated column chart that
expands and explains a facet of the data in the important slice in the
pie chart in cells H1:M15

This set of things (pie chart with text boxes, AutoShape arrow, column
chart with text boxes) is then squozen down to be 3 inches by 6
inches, so that it fits in the right place on my dashboard.

I've been creating these types of dashboards for a year with much
positive feedback from the clients.
Up to now, I have always cut and pasted these "sets of things" as
static pictures --- which, of couse, leads to much hassle when I need
to update the data.

The camera tool (or Paste Picture Link) seemed like a great way to set
up the dashboard once and have the pictures update automatically when
the underlying data is updated.

And it all seems to work...... Up until I need to Print.

When I Print-Preview or Print, the result looks strange: some
annotations are missing, chart titles have changed size, the pie chart
itself has changed size -- expanding to fill the entire chart area, or
shrinking down to nearly nothing. And I can't seem to guess what is
going to happen to which picture-link --- it almost seems random.

I feel like I've scoured the interwebs, trying to find mention of this
type of problem, but haven't seen anything...
Charting blogs, dashboarding blogs, PTS, Chandoo, ExcelUser, and even
Microsoft Knowledge base.

Is anyone familiar with this problem?
Any tips/tricks/pointers/help-of-any-kind?

Thanks,

-jennifer.
 

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