Heartbroken: custom chart markers don't display properly in PowerPoint

[Del Cotter]

I have been following Jon Peltier's wonderful tip on creating custom
markers for Excel,

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/ChartsHowTo/CustomMarkers.html

and I was all ready to import the finished product to Powerpoint, when I
discovered that PowerPoint 97 (and Word 97) cannot handle the change
from basic to custom markers. The series that have been customized are
misaligned in the other applications! Does anyone know how I can recover
from this awful disappointment?

Now, there is a "solution", which is to paste as a bitmap. The thing is,
I was really hoping to get the improved picture quality that comes from
pasting as a vector graphic, then importing out of PP and into a
photo-manipulation program at much better resolution than Excel achieves
alone. So my problem boils down to:

1) Nothing except Word and PowerPoint seems to accept Excel charts as
vector graphics

2) Word and PowerPoint don't display the vector graphics properly when
the chart markers are custom pictures (either bitmap or MS's own
AutoShape system)

If you're interested in reproducing this problem, I have a demo file at

http://www.branta.demon.co.uk/demo.xls

if you copy and paste or paste-link the chart to Word or PP, you see how
the smiley faces fall off the x-axis instead of lining up with it as
they should. This is a very minor misalignment compared to some of the
grosser ones I've managed to produce. Notice that if you clear the
custom formatting and get back to the standard marker, the chart
displays properly.

 

[Del Cotter]

Now, there is a "solution", which is to paste as a bitmap. The thing is,
I was really hoping to get the improved picture quality that comes from
pasting as a vector graphic, then importing out of PP and into a
photo-manipulation program at much better resolution than Excel achieves
alone. So my problem boils down to:

1) Nothing except Word and PowerPoint seems to accept Excel charts as
vector graphics

2) Word and PowerPoint don't display the vector graphics properly when
the chart markers are custom pictures (either bitmap or MS's own
AutoShape system)

It happens every time, guaranteed: within seconds of committing this
article to Usenet, I ran across Jon's advice for finding the secret
Microsoft trick to exporting Excel charts as vector graphics:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/ChartsHowTo/DelinkChartData.html

so I'm no longer limited to pasting into another Office application and
out of it to an external program.

The bad news is that every other application has the same problem:
pictures display fine, as long as the Excel chart doesn't use any custom
markers.

So, any ideas? Is there perhaps a special class of markers I can use
that are export-safe? Is it necessary to make the markers a special
fixed size, and if so, what size do they need to be? I'm not looking for
anything fancy, just some vertical and horizontal lines, and triangles
like the standard one, only pointing left, right, and down instead of
just up.

 

[Jon Peltier]

Del -

Using Excel 2003, I was able to copy as a picture and paste the picture into
Word 2003, and the custom markers lined up as they had in the original
chart. I only have 2003 on this laptop, and I don't use 97 at all anymore,
so I can't check other versions.

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