Comments on: Add Percentages on the Secondary Axis

By: Thom Mitchell

Thom Mitchell — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:34:52 +0000

I am trying to make the advanced Gantt chart —
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/pix5/AdvGantt08ax.gif —
responsive to spin buttons to change the MinimumScale and MaximumScale values for the time axes. The chart has its “Primary X Time Scale Axis” along the bottom and “Secondary Y Value Axis” along the top edge of the chart.

The following VBA code in a worksheet module has no effect:
Case “$C$33″
ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(“Chart 1″).Chart.Axes(xlCategory).MinimumScale = _
Target.Value + 39810
ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(“Chart 1″).Chart.Axes(xlValue, xlSecondary). _
MinimumScale = Target.Value + 39810

The spin button changes cell C33 (and other dependent cell values), but the chart does not change. I, too, am a VBA dummy…

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:05:04 +0000

Hi Michael -

When you specify an axis, you use a syntax like this:

ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue, xlPrimary)

ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(“Chart 1″).Chart.Axes(xlCategory)

There are two arguments to the Axes() property. The first is xlCategory for the X axis and xlValue for the Y axis. The second is xlPrimary or xlSecondary, and the meaning is obvious. The second argument is optional, and assumed to be xlPrimary if missing. Simply insert the xlSecondary into the slot for thee second argument:

ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(“Chart 1″).Chart.Axes(xlCategory, xlSecondary)

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:56:54 +0000

Hi Jon,
in http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/AxisScaleLinkToSheet.html you show how to link the axis scales to cell values. This works fine for primary axis?
How can I use this code for secondary axis? – I’ a VBA dummy ;-)
Thanks for your reply

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:52:29 +0000

Hi John -

That’s a good point. In many cases this technique would be much more difficult to implement. In this specific case, the person wanted to see the changes with respect to the initial value, the gross revenues. Any case that referenced a single value, say, the initial value or the final value, would work simply like this.

If you wanted to see the percentage change corresponding to each value change, I think you would have to calculate the percentages in the worksheet and apply them to each bar in the chart as a data label.

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:18:06 +0000

Jon,

Assuming an entirely different data set, another issue might be . . . how do you account for the percent changes when there are positive and negative values? Or, for example, favorable and unfavorable variances to plan or greater than or less than changes to prior period? In my experience rarely are the components of change all positive or all negative. Perhaps rather than showing the percentages on an axis perhap each percent change could be individually tied to the differences between two bars.

As an example, an increase from 40 to 50 is 25%, but a decrease from 50 to 40 is 20%.

John Mansfield