Excel Charting Problems

[greg]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I am one of the unfortunate users who switched from 2004 to 2008. Not only is Office 2008 much slower but several items from applications have been eliminated. Excel charting has been reduced...when attempting to print a chart you cannot use print preview and adjust your margins, instead you have to set a print area within your spreadsheet and then fit your chart within the print area. Enough with the Chart templates, bring back the basics so we can do our own charting After countless hours with Microsoft tech support, suggested I go back to 2004, not really a possibility since I use Entourage 2008 and my Microsoft User Data File has been updated to 2008. Desperate for help.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I am one of the unfortunate users who switched from 2004 to 2008. Not only is
Office 2008 much slower but several items from applications have been
eliminated. Excel charting has been reduced...when attempting to print a chart
you cannot use print preview and adjust your margins, instead you have to set
a print area within your spreadsheet and then fit your chart within the print
area. Enough with the Chart templates, bring back the basics so we can do our
own charting After countless hours with Microsoft tech support, suggested I go
back to 2004, not really a possibility since I use Entourage 2008 and my
Microsoft User Data File has been updated to 2008. Desperate for help.

Well, you CAN install Excel 2004, and it will run happily with all the other
Office 2008 programs. If you have some specific charting problems we can
address them here one at a time. Try setting your worksheet to page layout
view, and see if that helps your preview problem.

 

[greg]

Thanks for your prompt reply, I have done as you said (page layout in 2008) and that doesn't allow the features that 2004 extends (print preview and then adjusting margins etc. to get an actual view of what you will be printing). When using page layout view in 2008 you still have to assign a print area BEHIND the chart, if you don't get the edges of your chart just right-on you will see part of the spreadsheet on the edges once you print. It takes several attempts just align things correctly. Has to be an easier way of doing this, perhaps an update for 2008 to make life easier. When using page layout view in 2008 the machine goes in to crawl mode which complicates things even more. I brought my problem home and used 2004 which works perfectly (as we have come to expect from Microsoft). However to add 2004 to my office machine I am told that my Microsoft User Data File could possibly become corrupted since I am currently using 2008. Furthermore, why would I want different versions of Office to remedy the problem, just more HD space consumed? Thanks in advance.