Strange behavior, Excel 2004 on PowerMac G5

[spanninga]

Since installing Office 2004 (updated to 11.1.1 - 050201) on Dual 2.7
GHz PowerPC G5 under MacOS 10.4.2, Excel has been letting me down as
follows:
1) One of my frequently-used keyboard shortcut is Shft+Ctrl+8 (formerly
Shft+Opt+Cmd+8) is meant to select the 'current region' around the
active cell. This no longer functions -- there is no response at all.
2) Using the Chart Wizard produces a black rectangle filling the entire
Plot Area for whatever chart type is chosen. The Chart Area is
proportioned OK, but largely blank (apart from that black triangle).
The Wizard also does a very poor job of selecting a Y-axis scale. It is
possible to produce a decent graph by fiddling with this mess, but
compared to previous versions (X, 2001) this is a frustrating waste of
time, especially with deadlines looming.
Trashing com.microsoft.Excel.plist makes no difference, nor does
removing Office 2004 completely and re-installing it from scratch using
my dealer's demo copy of Office 2004 (also installing all those updates
from 11 to 11.1.1).
Wonder whether anyone else has similar struggles with this
software/hardware combination.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello_

Correct, and it is incorrectly documented in Help. What will work is either
Ctrl or Cmd + *(on the Numeric Keypad). Both should do what you want.

Have not experienced the Chart Wizard anomaly, so I can't comment on that.
Can you be more specific as to how the data is arranged, what exact
technique you're using' what style of chart & as new sheet or as object,
etc.?

HTH |:>)

 

[spanninga]

Thanks for that, CyberTaz. Re Chart Wizard, I have made up a small
example illustrating the problem. Not sure how to attach a pdf to this
message, here is how it works:
1) Open a new workbook
2) Place some numbers in the first two columns, e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20 in
A1:A4 and 3.8, 4.9, 6.0, 7.8 in B1:B4.
3) Select the range A1:B4
4) Press Chart Wizard toolbar button
5) Choose Line Chart (any sub-type).

The resulting chart (at least on my G5) is a narrow black rectangle
spanning the width of the Chart Area, consisting of bunched-together
horizontal grid lines. With much fiddling about, the Y-axis can be
stretched to its proper length, disentangling the gridlines and the
Y-axis. At that point it becomes evident that there has been no
'default' scaling of the Y-axis: usually the chart contains only one or
two of the data points. All this can be fixed manually, but who needs
that in a crisis?

XY scatter charts suffer from much the same problem. Other chart types
yield poorly-scaled results: Column, Bar, Pie and Doughnut charts all
need remedial work.

Am I the only one getting these inadequate charts? In that case, any
suggestions what can be done apart from trashing Preferences (already
tried)?

TIA <8^(

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry - Tried the sample data from your post as both Line of various types
and XY with no problems at all.

I'm running 2004 (11.1.1) on a PM G5 Dual 2GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, OS X 10.4.2.

If you like, I'll send you a copy. Whether it looks OK may help
troubleshoot. If you want the copy confirm a valid email address.

Regards |:>)

 

[spanninga]

Thanks eMail address as shown remains valid. Would appreciate seeing
your worksheet. But since we are running very similar setups, corrupt
Excel Preferences are beginning to shape up as the most likely
suspects. Have so far zapped/regenerated only com.microsoft.Excel.plist
I wonder if there are perhaps other Prefs that may be affect Wizard
behaviour?
Anyway, better take it one step at a time. I'll run you example and
send you the result off-list, both as XL file and (to bypass your copy
of XL2004) in pdf format.
TIA <8^(

 

[spanninga]

Thanks eMail address as shown remains valid. Would appreciate seeing
your worksheet. But since we are running very similar setups, corrupt
Excel Preferences are beginning to shape up as the most likely
suspects. Have so far zapped/regenerated only com.microsoft.Excel.plist
I wonder if there are perhaps other Prefs that may be affect Wizard
behaviour?
Anyway, better take it one step at a time. I'll run you example and
send you the result off-list, both as XL file and (to bypass your copy
of XL2004) in pdf format.
TIA <8^(