I think a single trip to Tools > Options (or wherever it’s been moved to in Excel 2007) is easier and cleaner than filling blank cells with formulas.

Except as Derek pointed out, you can change how blanks are treated and avoid the gaps. I am thinking that Derek’s technique is probably the best discussed here. I think I’ll have to rewrite the post, put all of the techniques here, and put his first.

You have my condolences. I have had a few projects obsoleted by 2007. I also have been able to salvage some complex charts, often by resorting to the “hard” way of achieving an effect or by sacrificing something else.

Joy and bliss here.

At least everyone is in the same boat…

Bob

If I understand your approach, it should work fine in 2007. Since it entails multiple series of the same type using the same axis, the problem I’ve butted against is not a problem.

My intuition, that it would be no more fuss than Jon’s method, was very wrong; for instance, I had to go into Tools.. Options to make the line interpolate between points, and so on. The only advantage left was that in the end I had something reasonably robust if frequently-changing data was to be applied to the chart: it had one axis left on auto instead of two axes that needed manual aligning.

Jon, would a line chart version also break in Excel 2007?

I use both ways in my own work. In Excel 2003 the XY series option is a nice one, because the XY series can coexist on the line chart’s date axis, and there’s no need to use the secondary axis. But sometimes it’s easier to let an axis provide its own labels, as above.

In Excel 2007, an XY series ignores the line chart date axis even when both are plotted on the primary axis and there should be no confusion. This has broken a good number (a bad number?!) of client solutions for no good reason. You can still plot the XY series on the secondary axis, but now the axes must manually be synchronized, and you lose the ability to use the secondary axis for another purpose.