Graphs

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Guest

Although i've used Access for years, i have never tried to embed a graph in a
report. I am trying now with 2003 and getting very confused! All I want is a
simple bar chart showing sales values for about 10 different product types. I
have the query and want it shown in graphical form with a different colour
for each product type. It must be easy, but I can't work it out. Any simple
tips?
 
How far have you gotten? Do you have a query created that creates your
values to graph?
Is the graph the only object on the report or are there other records?
Have you tried the report graph wizard?
Have you tried dropping a graph/chart control on your report?
 
Malc said:
Although i've used Access for years, i have never tried to embed a
graph in a report. I am trying now with 2003 and getting very
confused! All I want is a simple bar chart showing sales values for
about 10 different product types. I have the query and want it shown
in graphical form with a different colour for each product type. It
must be easy, but I can't work it out. Any simple tips?
Click to expand...

Tips...

Always build your charts in a form. You can paste them into a report when
you are finished with them.

The biggest difference is that with a form you can set the chart to Locked =
No and Enabled = Yes in design view of the form. This allows you to
double-click the chart to bring up the chart designer interface while the
form is in normal view. In a report you can only bring up the chart tools
when the report is in design view and you often (almost never actually) get
to see the chart as you formatted it or with your actual data. It will come
up as the canned "sample" chart and data.

In a form though when you double-click on the chart with the form in normal
view you will see YOUR chart with YOUR data. From there it is usually
fairly a straight forward process to tweak the design to your liking. Once
finished tweaking, you can then copy and paste the chart into a report's
design view.

After pasting into a report you can then double-click the chart in design
view and it will come up in the chart tools interface with the same
formatting and data as the last time you looked at it in the form prior to
copying it.

WARNING:
Charts in Access reports often don't update properly. The chart often takes
longer to process than the report page and the report doesn't wait for it.
This means that in cases where the chart is supposed to change based on
criteria applied to the report it will be incorrrect. Charts that are
linked to data in the report (different chart per record for example) will
seldom work at all. They will all look like the first record. There are
work-arounds in some Microsoft Knowledge Base articles, but I had mixed
results with them. They "help" but don't completely solve the problem. The
newest version(s) of Access might have corrected this, but I know that 97
and 2000 definitely have this issue.

For charts that are supposed to change "per report instance" you can usually
close the report and open it a second time and the chart will be correct. I
never even attempt the "different chart per record" anymore as I could never
find a way to make it reliable.
 
Thanks for getting back to me, in answer to your questions: -

Yes I have a dead simple query with the values that I want represented.
The graph will be the only object on the report apart from some simple
headings.
I found the report graph wizard less than helpful.
Not sure what is meant by 'dropping a graph/chart control on my report'
 
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