Thanks Jon,
After posting the message, I discovered this independently. What one seems
to have to do is to first select the ring in question, then wait a bit, then
select the slice. I was trying to just double-click on slices, and that
wasn't working.
That said, I'm still looking for an easier way to do this. Suppose one has 4
different cases with 10 categories to compare. That's 40 slices. Customizing
an individual slice typically takes 2 clicks to get in, another to get to the
Fill Effects, another to get to the pattern tab, 2 to select colors, one to
select pattern, and two to back out. That's 9 altogether, or 360 for the
entire chart (not counting titles, etc.) If one makes a mistake or doesn't
like the way a specific combination looks, it takes even more. If one can do
this quickly, we're talking the better part of an hour per chart. If, as I am
doing, one is writing a 100-page document with maybe 15-20 similar charts,
this is a collosal amount of time.
I'm looking for some way to minimize the work. I'd like, for instance, at a
minimum to be able to specify a format and use that for all similar charts.
(Category 1 uses pattern A, Category 2 pattern B.) Even better, I'd like to
define a multivariate logic to the formatting that corresponds to the
multivariate nature of the chart. (Innermost ring is in the red family,
second ring is in the green family, etc.; Category 1 is solid, Category 2 is
trellis, etc.). Even better, I'd like to define consistent color schemes and
associate them with the fill patterns. (The US is always green and grey,
Rhode Island is always blue and gold, New Jersey is red and grey, etc.)
You mention that clicking the legend key is the same as clicking the data
point. At least in the charts I've been able to format thus far, I only get
one set of legends even though the doughnut chart has multiple rings. There's
a difference, for instance, between the area of the chart corresponding to
U.S. income taxes and the area corresponding to Rhode Island income taxes,
but the legend only has an entry for income taxes. Clicking it would make the
two rings have identical schemes, but that's exactly not what I'm after. (I
do suppose it would be most efficient to first set the fill pattern for the
entire chart this way and then to set color schemes for individual rings, but
I'm not sure that Excel will allow me to reset just the color scheme without
also resetting the fill pattern.) Is there any way to make the legend
separate entries for each rings?
Thinking about this more abstractly, a doughnut chart involves one cardinal
variable by two categorical variables. As far as I've been able to discern,
Excel provides no apriori, systematic way to apply category-specific schemes
even for one categorical variable. (This would allow, for example, one to
specify schemes for ten categories that Excel always uses, even for charts
that only contain five categories.) Given the nature of the graph, it should
have a way to specify schemes for two categorical variables and their
interaction. Is there some expert way to get Excel to do this? Even, perhaps,
using a macro?
Thanks.
