A reader encountered problems applying conditional formatting to a pivot table. I tried it myself, using the same kind of formulas I would have applied in a regular worksheet range, and had no problem. The reader responded that he was having problems in Excel 2007, and I was using 2003. Apparently in 2003 the conditional [...]

Sometimes you have a whole workbook full of charts. You made some last week, and others yesterday, but the one you made today has just the right look to it. You’d like to apply the formatting to the rest of the charts, but the thought of reformatting all of those charts makes your brain ache.
The [...]

In recent months I have encountered a particularly troublesome error. It occurs in Excel 2003 and 2007 (and perhaps in earlier versions, but I don’t recall any such cases). The error is heralded by an unusually unhelpful error message, even my Microsoft’s standards: Microsoft Visual Basic – System Error &H80004005 (-2147467259). Unspecified error.

In Stack Columns In Order Of Size I showed a worksheet formula approach to sort columns in each stack in a stacked chart by size, not by series. When you create a stacked column chart the usual way, the columns are stacked in the same series order, as shown below.
– – –
This technique [...]

In some of the analyses I do, I’ll have a range of data and some charts based on this range. As the analysis unfolds, more columns may be added to the data range, and these have to be added to the chart. Until last week, I would add a series by copying the series formula [...]

By definition an interactive dashboard contains methods for users to control which information is displayed. This can be accomplished in many ways. In Interactive Charting by Combo Box or Checkbox I wrote about using checkboxes and worksheet formulas to do this, and I elaborated on the technique in Interactive Charts with Checkboxes and Formulas.
There are a [...]

When you run a recorded macro, it may work great, except it keeps referring back to the original worksheet. It also refers back to the original data range. Both of these situations can be remedied by editing of the recorded macro.
In How To: Fix a Recorded Macro I showed how to make a recorded macro [...]

Today in Daily Dose of Excel, Dick wrote about Code Construction. One of his topics was to pull pieces of a routine out into a separate procedure, particularly if that piece of a routine included fiddling with On Error Resume Next and On Error Goto 0.
Dick’s example was to replace this section of code:

In the comments of Choice of Category Axis Order a reader asked how to use only part of a range as the source data for a chart. Her data and chart initially looked like this:

The line “Total Other Items” is a sum of the items below it in the list, and the chart does not show [...]

I was asked if there is any way to count all of the bold cells in a range. Of course there is. Here is a simple VBA function that carries out this task:
Function CountBoldCellsInRange(rng As Range) As Long
Dim rCell As Range
Dim iBold As Long

iBold = 0
For Each [...]