Disappearing Chart Axis

Hi

I have posted this problem before as Dynamic Bar Chart Category Axis
Problem, but the search engine wouldn't pick it up and I'm assuming that's
why I got no response. So here goes again....

I have created a dynamic bar chart (roughly based on Stephen Bullen's
funchrt4). The number of categories can range from 2 to about 50 and ideally
I
would like the category axis names font to be Arial 10 at least.
When the number of categories gets towards 50, the category axis names
disappear altogether and the only way I have found to retrieve them is to
manually reduce the font size to about 7 (dependent on the level of the
zoom). This font size is excessively small for the majority of charts.
Is there any way to get Excel2002 to keep the category axis names in all
circumstances without reducing them all to a very small font size?

--
Thanks

Richard

Probably the reason you got no answers is that no-one knew an easy solution.
I have seen similar questions several times, but have not seen a good
solution.
What I have ended up doing in this case is pasting a table on its side to
make it appear as a catagory list. This is definately not convenient.
I have also used a secondary axis and set it up to print every other label
on each.
formating was an issue

"Richard" wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have posted this problem before as Dynamic Bar Chart Category Axis
> Problem, but the search engine wouldn't pick it up and I'm assuming that's
> why I got no response. So here goes again....
>
> I have created a dynamic bar chart (roughly based on Stephen Bullen's
> funchrt4). The number of categories can range from 2 to about 50 and ideally
> I
> would like the category axis names font to be Arial 10 at least.
> When the number of categories gets towards 50, the category axis names
> disappear altogether and the only way I have found to retrieve them is to
> manually reduce the font size to about 7 (dependent on the level of the
> zoom). This font size is excessively small for the majority of charts.
> Is there any way to get Excel2002 to keep the category axis names in all
> circumstances without reducing them all to a very small font size?
>
> --
> Thanks
>
> Richard

If you have Excel 2000 or later, double click on the axis, and on the
scale tab, type a 1 next to 'Number of categories between tick mark labels'.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______


Richard wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have posted this problem before as Dynamic Bar Chart Category Axis
> Problem, but the search engine wouldn't pick it up and I'm assuming that's
> why I got no response. So here goes again....
>
> I have created a dynamic bar chart (roughly based on Stephen Bullen's
> funchrt4). The number of categories can range from 2 to about 50 and ideally
> I
> would like the category axis names font to be Arial 10 at least.
> When the number of categories gets towards 50, the category axis names
> disappear altogether and the only way I have found to retrieve them is to
> manually reduce the font size to about 7 (dependent on the level of the
> zoom). This font size is excessively small for the majority of charts.
> Is there any way to get Excel2002 to keep the category axis names in all
> circumstances without reducing them all to a very small font size?
>

Thanks for the responses

The 'Number of categories between tick mark labels' was set at 1.
The problem would seem to be that the amount of space for the text is
dependent on the height of the bars in the chart. More bars means smaller
bars and less space for each line of text. When the available height is too
small to fit in the font, the axis labels disappear altogether.
The solutions could be to do something along the lines that BJ had tried, to
turn off some function of Excel, or to use VBA to point to some calculated
value.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
--
Thanks

Richard


"Jon Peltier" wrote:

> If you have Excel 2000 or later, double click on the axis, and on the
> scale tab, type a 1 next to 'Number of categories between tick mark labels'.
>
> - Jon
> -------
> Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
> Peltier Technical Services
> Tutorials and Custom Solutions
> http://PeltierTech.com/
> _______
>
>
> Richard wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > I have posted this problem before as Dynamic Bar Chart Category Axis
> > Problem, but the search engine wouldn't pick it up and I'm assuming that's
> > why I got no response. So here goes again....
> >
> > I have created a dynamic bar chart (roughly based on Stephen Bullen's
> > funchrt4). The number of categories can range from 2 to about 50 and ideally
> > I
> > would like the category axis names font to be Arial 10 at least.
> > When the number of categories gets towards 50, the category axis names
> > disappear altogether and the only way I have found to retrieve them is to
> > manually reduce the font size to about 7 (dependent on the level of the
> > zoom). This font size is excessively small for the majority of charts.
> > Is there any way to get Excel2002 to keep the category axis names in all
> > circumstances without reducing them all to a very small font size?
> >
>

Nope, if you can't find it in the UI, it isn't there in VBA either. You
can try replacing the regular axis with textbox labels, which can be
done manually or via VBA, and VBA takes the tedium out of it.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______


Richard wrote:

> Thanks for the responses
>
> The 'Number of categories between tick mark labels' was set at 1.
> The problem would seem to be that the amount of space for the text is
> dependent on the height of the bars in the chart. More bars means smaller
> bars and less space for each line of text. When the available height is too
> small to fit in the font, the axis labels disappear altogether.
> The solutions could be to do something along the lines that BJ had tried, to
> turn off some function of Excel, or to use VBA to point to some calculated
> value.
> I would be interested to hear your thoughts.