Doing the right thing for missing data and area charts

[Dave Land]

Hello,

I'm developing a dashboard report for a client that uses area charts.
Occasionally, we have to deal with missing data. For other chart types,
Excel can be made to do the right thing, but for area charts, I don't
seem to be able to have the chart just skip the missing data -- it
always draws the diagonal line down to zero on the missing data
point(s), which looks stupid.

For example, if the January data is missing, I want something like this
(which makes it clear that the data begins in February):

+-------------------------+
200 | ______|
| ^ / |
250 | / \ / |
| / \ __/ |
200 | / \ / |
| / V |
150 | | |
| | |
100 | | |
+-------------------------+
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Instead of this (which makes is look like the value for January is
zero):

+-------------------------+
200 | ______|
| ^ / |
250 | / \ / |
| / \ __/ |
200 | / \ / |
| / V |
150 | / |
| / |
100 | / |
+-------------------------+
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Thanks in advance,

Dave