Chart wizard funcitonality in Excel 2007?

[Elizabeth Swoope]

I hope I'm missing something in Excel 2007. In Excel 2003, the chart wizard
gives you access to lots of options when you create a graph--graph type, data
range, the various series (including the X axis labels), the chart title and
axis titles, gridlines, legends, and others. It doesn't take long to create
the graph with most of the options you want and then tweak it pretty quickly.

In Excel 2007, it seems that every option is a separate button/menu/choice.
Setting the chart title, the x-axis title, and the y-axis title are three
different operations. Ditto for pretty much everything except specifying the
data range.

I haven't timed this but my gut feeling is that it takes me at least half
again as long to create a graph in Excel 2007 as in Excel 2003, maybe double
the time. I surely hope I'm missing something simple.

Thanks for any advice!

liz

 

[Jon Peltier]

Liz -

It's not just you. In general I find the new Office 2007 interface less
efficient than in 2003. For charting, though, I find it terribly
inefficient. Everything, as you state, is a separate button or control, so
it takes much more clicking to get anything done. I'm tempted to develop a
Chart Options substitute as an add-in, just to regain some of my lost speed.

- Jon

 

[Elizabeth Swoope]

Jon,

Thank you for your response. I was hoping I was missing something. I don't
like Office in the first place, but Office 2007 is an abomination. I cringe
every time I think of the kazillion lost hours of productivity spent trying
to get anything done with this software. Fortunately, I don't have to USE it
for my own work most of the time, I just have to teach it.

I really appreciate you MVPs and the info you provide, especially on the
MVPS web site. I spent lots of time there several years ago when I was told
that I had to teach Office so I could learn the right way to use the software.

liz

 

[Cassie]

I couldn't agree more -- charting in Excel 2007 is a gruesome, time-consuming
task that seems to be a giant leap backwards from Excel 2003. The true
functionality of 2003 seems to have been replaced by 4704 different
beveling/lighting/material choices -- not a good trade-off.

 

[joe]

This is awful. Excel 2007 is awful. I'm just trying to create some scatter
plots (with lines) of data. And it's impossible. I've been using Excel for
years....and it's taken me an hour and I still don't have a SIMPLE graph
done.

Where's the x axis and y axis? How the #*#*#* are we supposed to create
multiple data series? I feel like throwing my computer through the window. I
can't believe that I can't create a graph...that Excel isn't intuitive and
that no one around me can figure it out either.

I will be uninstalling 2007 and asking for a refund. The entire suite of
2007 is slow and a huge step backwards...just like Vista.

 

[Mike Smith]

Thank you all for this. So it's not just me.

I have Office 03 and 07 installed on the same PC and I have actually timed
myself making the same bar graph with a secondary axis line graph. Took me
10 minutes in 03, 2 hours later and I still don't know how to figure it out
in 07. And I teach 03, moving to 07 in our new SOE.

No joke Microsoft, dumping the chart wizard is a freakin' disgrace. 07
compares favourably if you click finish on the first screen of the 03 wizard
- very simple charts are just as quick (no improvement), but complex ones are
made unnecessarily difficult. And what about the right click options? In 03
we could go to any of the wizard screens to make our changes. Not so in 07.
And the source data dialog is hopeless. I'd love to see the UAT signoffs on
that one.

I'm reminded of Shrek: "I'm only trying to help!"
"What you're doing is the opposite of help."

Please Microsoft, give us the 03 chart wizard as a downloadable add in.
I'll make sure it gets added to the SOE before our 3000 staff start freaking
out.

 

[Martin Brown]

Thank you all for this. So it's not just me.

I have Office 03 and 07 installed on the same PC and I have actually timed
myself making the same bar graph with a secondary axis line graph. Took me
10 minutes in 03, 2 hours later and I still don't know how to figure it out
in 07. And I teach 03, moving to 07 in our new SOE.

No joke Microsoft, dumping the chart wizard is a freakin' disgrace. 07
compares favourably if you click finish on the first screen of the 03 wizard
- very simple charts are just as quick (no improvement), but complex ones are
made unnecessarily difficult. And what about the right click options? In 03
we could go to any of the wizard screens to make our changes. Not so in 07.
And the source data dialog is hopeless. I'd love to see the UAT signoffs on
that one.

It said "SHIP IT and be DAMNED!".

I'm reminded of Shrek: "I'm only trying to help!"
"What you're doing is the opposite of help."

I have always felt the M$ help tends to give you the least useful
general advice in the worst possible order and at the wrong level of
detail (and in some cases with examples that cannot work eg inverting
a singular matrix).
A Microsoft definition of HELP itself could easily read:
He - masculine pronoun
LP - black vinyl disk played at 33 rpm

Although technically the statements are correct they shed no light on
the matter in hand.

Please Microsoft, give us the 03 chart wizard as a downloadable add in.
I'll make sure it gets added to the SOE before our 3000 staff start freaking
out.

Save your company a whole lot of money. Do NOT buy XL2007 until they
fix the major bugs and shortcomings.
You are not compelled to buy new software just because it is
available. XL2003 is a very fine and stable product.

XL charting in 2007 is just about adequate if all you ever do is plot
simple bar charts of sales by quarter, but it is a total disaster for
real XY plots of just a few thousand points that 2003 found trivial.
More than an order of magnitude slower and a complete and utter waste
of time. Stay with 2003 or suffer the consequences!

It is a particularly bad trade-off for my clients who include
scientists with a lot more data than the average business user. 2003
works beautifully for them. Whereas 2007 is almost completely unusable
even on modest datasets.

If enough people refuse to buy XL2007 then eventually MS will have to
do something about it. As long as customers keep buying a defective
product there is no incentive for them to put it right.

I don't really see how anyone can recommend their clients to buy
XL2007 at present.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Jon Peltier]

I don't really see how anyone can recommend their clients to buy
XL2007 at present.

I recommend that my clients do not upgrade. If they ask about the new
features, I either remind them how to achieve what they want in 2003, or
explain the tradeoffs. More rows and columns, at the cost of slower
calculation and less efficient charting capability.

- Jon