A reader named Julie has a regular chart that is linked to a pivot table. When the pivot table is pivoted or updated, it may have different numbers of rows and columns, and the chart must be updated manually. Julie asked whether a procedure could be developed to update the chart automatically.
I’ve done this in [...]

There has been a lot of discussion about pie charts and bar charts lately. I and many other know-it-alls have clearly stated that pie charts are the red-headed stepchildren in the family of chart types. In Peltier Loves Pie I provided some guidelines to follow if you still insist on using pie charts.
In this post [...]

A dynamic chart can be constructed using dynamic ranges that change in size as data is added or removed. This technique is very powerful: you can define flexible ranges limited only by your ability to write an appropriate Refers To formula.
One imitation of this approach is that it can only account for dynamic numbers of [...]

GetOpenFilename and GetSaveAsFilename are useful dialogs to use within Excel VBA procedures when your procedure needs to know the filename of a file to open or save. I have encapsulated each into functions that add to their functionality, and make then simpler to use in my procedures.
Note that both GetXxxxFilename functions return file names. They [...]

Recently I posted several VBA procedures for exporting charts and other purposes. These make use of a number of procedures that I use when manipulating file names. I inadvertently left these out of the posts, so I am including them here.
The following shows what the functions return when passed a file name and path of [...]

In Export Chart as Image File I described the VBA command to export a chart as an image file, and I presented a simple routine that exported the active chart.
I said that one day I would enhance the procedure to use GetSaveAsFileName, which allows the user to browse to any folder to save the image [...]

A lot of Excel procedures are packaged in Add-Ins. An Add-In is basically a workbook containing some code, that has some other unique properties. The workbook is invisible. The workbook can be installed, which means it opens when Excel opens, so that its functionality is always available.
Installing an Add-In is really not complicated. If it [...]

Often people want to save their charts as an image file. Excel doesn’t offer this as a native feature in the UI, but you can export a chart using VBA:
ActiveChart.Export “C:\My Charts\SpecialChart.png”

This command allows you to export your chart in any of the bitmap formats that you have the appropriate export filters for. This [...]

A very common question I am asked is, “How do I link text on a chart to text in a cell?” This is really not too difficult, but it’s also not intuitive. Except for axis tick labels, text elements in an Excel chart can be linked to worksheet cells. These text elements include the chart [...]

In Connect Two XY Series I showed how to use an extra XY series to connect two existing XY series in a chart. This shows how points in the first series may have changed to produce the data in the second series. A reader asked in a comment how to use arrows to more visually [...]