Comments on: Make a Copied Chart Link to New Data

By: Gyorgy F.

Gyorgy F. — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:47:00 +0000

Hi Jon,

You wrote:
“Instead of copying just the chart, this time copy the sheet with its chart. The new sheet is now named ‘Sheet1 (2)’, meaning copy 2 of Sheet1, and we see from the highlighted range and series formula that the chart on the new sheet references the data on the new sheet.”

And that is usually the case indeed. In one of my computers however (WinXP, Off2007) the copied new sheet’s embedded chart annoyingly enough references back to the old (source) worksheet, whatever i do… After spending several hours on searching a solution on the Internet I found no help.

You also mentioned above:
“This was problematic in earlier versions of Excel 2007. In SP2 it appears to work as expected.”

Finally i tried this, and voilà: installing Office 2007 SP2 has solved the issue.

Thanks for your site. It saved the rest of my day.

Regards,
Gyorgy

By: Jeff B

Jeff B — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:37:53 +0000

I encountered the mysterious source data referencing when copying a sheet with just one embedded chart. I sent the file to a co-worker who has the same 2003 version of Excel. when she did the copy, the source data referenced the new sheet. After she created all the sheets I needed, the file was emailed back to me. Just for fun, I tried the copy again. Now it works for me as well.

By: Ken Morison

Ken Morison — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:55:28 +0000

Another variation on the theme. When I copied (not moved) Sheet1 from one workbook to another it created Sheet1 (2) as expected but the chart refered to Sheet1 in the new workbook. All I did was change its name to Sheet4 before copying it and everything was fine. A Move worked correctly.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:20:31 +0000

I have to remember that for the next person who has this problem. Thanks for digging.

By: Steven M.

Steven M. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:08:38 +0000

I found the issue Jon!

After navigating the Options dialog to run the diagnostics as you suggested, I decided to review the multitude of other options. I stumbled upon “Cut, Copy, and sort inserted objects with their parent cells” in the Advanced category. I enabled it and now when I copy a worksheet, my charts get copied too. I have no idea why it wasn’t enabled before.

Thanks again for your site. It is very useful and educational.

Regards,
Steven

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:31:12 +0000

Steven -

All three of these methods works fine for me, with the embedded charts being copied along with their parent worksheets. I would have suggested updating to SP2, but you report that you already are at that level. So it’s “one of those things”, which Office has in abundance.

Does this happen to all sheets with embedded charts, or just this special one? Were the charts originally made in Excel 2007, or was the file updated from an earlier version?

Here’s something to try which has helped to clear up some other misbehavior:

Click on the Office button
Click on Excel Options
Click on Resources
Click on Diagnose

If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what’s next.