"Fill Effects" not highlighted in Excel 2008 column chart

[rsek]

Hi,

I am trying to make a chart in Excel 2008 (Charts - column - clustered column)
In previous windows versions, I was able to choose "fill effects" and
select the fill (dots, grids, diamonds etc). When I try to do it in Excel
2008 (Formating pallet - fill - color - ), the fill effects option is there
but it is not highlighted.
Can anyone please help?

Thanks!!

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry, but those "old standbys" were omitted in 2008 in favor of the newer,
more dramatic effects. There has been a loud message sent to MacBU, but I
don't believe there's been any progress toward getting them restored. (I
vaguely recall something about a ''substitute" but I may be making that up.)
If you honestly can't get by without them use Help> Send Feedback to explain
your need in a request directly to MS.

The Fill Effects feature in the Formatting Palette pertains to other types
of shapes, but you do have other options for charts. Select the series
columns or individual data points & go to Format> Data Series - Fill & have
a look - Solids, gradients, textures & pictures.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[mobilemac69]

Hi,

 

[bartman1]

If you have the time and patience, you can create line fills in Adobe Illustrator and save them as .png files, then store them as a picture in the Office 2008 files within Applications.

I have taken the step of creating a full page of lines in Illustrator, saving them as a *.png, then putting the document in the Excel program as follows: Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/Media/Clip Art.

I have horizontal and vertical lines which work as chart fill (using the insert picture option for fill), and diagonal lines complete. I also created "dots" which will fill a chart. It takes a lot of time (for me) and if you do not fill the Illustrator page fully, it "tiles" and doesn't do the chart fill correctly.

It appears to work OK if you fill an entire page with lines in illustrator, spaced as you want them, with a white background (put a square with no border and white fill behind the lines, otherwise your lines will be transparent - although you may want transparent lines, so experiment).

 

[rsek via MacKB.com]

Hi bartman1

Thanks much for the tip. I wonder if the fill patterns (dot, lines, diamonds
etc can be imported from older Office applications (Excel, PowerPoint etc) to
Illustrator (instead of creating those manually) and then save those as .png.
Anyway, I think suggestion is valuable and I'll work on it.

As you might know, science journals charge heavily for colored figures. So,
in previous office versions, it was helpful to use patterns instead of colors
to avoid those charges. It is a shame that Office developers decided to
remove this feature.