Supress "Complex formatting that is applied to the selected chart..." message?

**Debacle** · 12-17-2010, 12:40 PM

Once and for all, I wish to find a solution to this ongoing problem for which I have failed to find a fix over the last two years.

I have a program (Excel VBA) that performs the following statements in a loop:

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The purpose is to copy an arrowhead image from a worksheet onto a point in a series in myChart (Chart object). Each series is a vertical line consisting of two points (one on each end) and presenting a vector force, and the arrowhead image is simply the pointer on the end of the force vector.

The problem is that whenever Excel decides that too many arrowheads (sometimes only four) have been pasted to the chart, the following warning message is raised:

"Complex formatting that is applied to the selected chart may take a while to display. Do you want to continue using formatting? [Yes/No]".

The arrowhead images are very simple and, in my opinion, should never raise any preformance concerns, but Excel seems to take exception. To this day, in all of my research and experimenting, I have not discovered a way to supress or eliminate this message.

Does anyone here have a proven solution to this issue? Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

**teylyn** · 12-18-2010, 04:45 AM

Hello,

if you posted your file, or a copy of your file with some dummy data and your code, we could run some tests.

Have you tried Application.DisplayAlerts set to false?

cheers

**Andy Pope** · 12-18-2010, 06:59 AM

Does the workbook get used by those with versions prior to xl2007? If not then you can use the built in arrow ends in your chart rather than pasted data markers.

**Debacle** · 12-20-2010, 04:09 PM

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate your time! To the questions raised...

Andy Pope - The program is currently used in Excel 2003-2010.

teylyn - The complex formatting warning, for some reason, is not affected by Application.DisplayAlerts = False. I do have it set to false in my program, though.

Unfortunately, I can't upload the whole program, as it contains proprietary design information. But I did attach a file with two subroutines of interest:

1) CreateLoadChart_ForTesting - This is a scaled down version of the subroutine in my program. It uses existing data already written to the LoadChartData worksheet, which is the container for the chart data. For some reason (maybe related to the problem at hand), I can't get this subroutine to raise the formatting error. Using the real program, line 51 would fail on the fourth time through the loop.

2) CreateLoadChart_OriginalFromProgram - This is the original version of the subroutine from my program, containing a bunch of global variables that hold output and conversion values calculated during an engineering analysis procedure prior to output/chart-creation. It will not excute, but I've included it for reference. When the formatting message is raised, it always comes up when line 197 [the .Paste command] is executed, and it appears after at least a few successful pastes have already been performed. It's as if Excel detects that the chart is being loaded up with extra objects and wants to warn the user that performance may suffer.

SetChartTitle - Please disregard this sub. The statement in this subroutine cannot be compiled by Excel 2003, and the equivalent method in 2003 VBA will not work properly in 2007+. Therefore I must run it conditionally.

Any more thoughts on what is causing this message to be raised? I apologize for not being able to duplicate the error here. I know that would make it easier to diagnose.

**Andy Pope** · 12-21-2010, 10:21 AM

I don't believe you can surppress the warning message.

There maybe a work around for both 2003 and 2007. How about drawing the arrow head yourself with the xy series?

See attached.

**Thorbjørn Nicolaisen** · 09-03-2012, 06:18 AM

Im not sure if this help you out, but I've had the same problem when changing formatting to a chart which already exists. If you change the formatting of the chart before you fill the chart with data, it doesn't trigger the warning box. Can you extrapolate the following code be helpful to your problem in any way?

Example code:

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**Greenoverwhite** · 11-28-2014, 06:43 AM

You could also use

Application.SendKeys "{ENTER}"

to acknowledge complex formatting...

**rerhart585** · 11-10-2020, 01:55 PM

Care must be taken when you apply Shape related Chart settings.

Only apply them after the chart has built all of it's Data Series.

Example:

With shp.Fill
.Visible = msoTrue
.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(255, 255, 255)
.Transparency = 0
.Solid
End With

Place these types of settings after the Shape which is the Parent Object for the Chart has finished rendering.

What happens is that if you have this code block before Chart has finished rendering, it raises events in the parent object. This in turn triggers this warning message.

Supress "Complex formatting that is applied to the selected chart..." message?

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