There has been a great deal of work to determine what works best for visual display of information. Jacques Bertin and Bill Cleveland did much of this work. If you want a well written guide of visual information design which incorporates this work, check out any of Stephen Few’s books.

Why do graphic designers rely so heavily on pie charts? People are familiar with the ubiquitous pie chart: they learn about pies early in school and they see pies so frequently in graphic designs. They are so familiar that they don’t realize that they are being shortchanged. But people expect pie charts, so graphic designers provide them. Just like people expect shiny multidimensional graphics in their dashboards, so the less-informed dashboard software designers keep building more ridiculous features into their products.

The term “panel chart” was coined to avoid potential trademark issues with the related term “trellis chart”. These issues never materialized, but the two terms are both used.

something to thinkg about: following the overrated tufte, people have abjured pie charts. Yet graphic designers – people whoose paycheck depends on graphics – often use pie charts. maybe they know something the experts don’t know

In any event, without the great work of people like peltier, it would be impossible to do decent charts in excel
PS: the panel chart is more commonly called a trellis plot ??

Instead of making two charts that must perfectly line up, make one chart, with all series as columns, and one by one change the ones you want as lines into lines:

ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(3).ChartType = xlLineMarkers

I have a macro that creates 3 charts. One is a simple bar chart and the other is actually two I’ve combined so that I have a bar and line graph plotted together. My problem is that the placement of the charts fluctuates each time I run the macro. Sometimes the alignment is just right and at other times it seems a location artifact leaves residual information in the macro and has them all over the page.

I’m new at this and have been looking for ways to clear or reset the chart location. Any help would be much appreciated. Code is below:

Sub NBImac()

‘ Macro1 Macro
‘ CHART 1

‘

‘MSChart1.ToDefaults
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddChart.Select
ActiveChart.SetSourceData Source:=Range(“‘NBI’!$A$3:$C$4″)
ActiveChart.ChartType = xlColumnClustered
ActiveChart.PlotBy = xlRows

‘ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).Select
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MinimumScale = 3.3
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MinimumScale = 1
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = 4.3
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = 5
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MajorUnit = 0.1
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MajorUnit = 0.5
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).Select
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Name = “=”"Newark Beth Israel-Psychiatry Mean”"”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).Name = “=”"NYCOM Class-Psychiatry Mean”"”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).XValues = “={2009,2010,2011}”
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
Selection.Position = xlTop
ActiveChart.SetElement (msoElementChartTitleAboveChart)
ActiveChart.ChartTitle.Select
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Select
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Interior.ColorIndex = 41
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).Select
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).Interior.ColorIndex = 1
ActiveChart.ChartTitle.Text = “Newark Beth Israel Recommend This Rotation”
ActiveChart.ChartArea.Select
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsObject, Name:=”NBIChart”

ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).IncrementLeft -150
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).IncrementTop -50
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Height = 250

‘ CHART 2

‘

‘
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddChart.Select
ActiveChart.SetSourceData Source:=Range(“‘NBI’!$A$7:$C$11″)
ActiveChart.ChartType = xlColumnClustered
ActiveChart.PlotBy = xlRows

ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).Select
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MinimumScale = 0
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MinimumScale = 1
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = 5
Selection.TickLabels.NumberFormat = “@”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Name = “=”"meaningfully engaged”"”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).Name = “=”"Physicians committed to teaching”"”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(3).Name = “=”"DME Responsive”"”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(4).Name = “=”"Adequate supervision and feedback”"”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(5).Name = _
“=”"Perform procedures relevent to level of training”"”
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(5).XValues = “={2009,2010,2011}”
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
Selection.Height = 151.994
Selection.Height = 189.994
ActiveChart.SetElement (msoElementChartTitleAboveChart)
ActiveChart.ChartTitle.Text = “Newark Beth Israel (color bars)”
Range(“F10″).Select

ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).IncrementLeft -150
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).IncrementTop 239
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Height = 275

ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(2).Chart.PlotArea.Height = 200

ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(2).Activate
ActiveChart.PlotArea.Select
With Selection
.Top = 150
.Height = 200
End With
ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(2).Activate
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
With Selection
.Top = 170
.Height = 212
End With

‘ CHART 3 – Linegraph

‘
Sheets(“NBI”).Select
Range(“A14:A30″).Select
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddChart.Select
ActiveChart.ChartStyle = 1
ActiveChart.SetSourceData Source:=Range(“‘NBI’!$A$14:$A$30″)
ActiveChart.ChartType = xlLineMarkers
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).Select

ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MinimumScale = 3.6
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MinimumScale = 1
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = 4.3
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = 5
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MajorUnit = 0.1
ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue).MajorUnit = 0.5
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
Selection.Position = xlTop
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Name = “=”"NYCOM class mean “”"
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsObject, Name:=”NBIChart”

ActiveChart.ChartArea.Select
With Selection.Format.Fill
.Visible = msoTrue
.ForeColor.ObjectThemeColor = msoThemeColorBackground2
.ForeColor.TintAndShade = 1
.Transparency = 1
End With
ActiveChart.PlotArea.Select
With Selection.Format.Fill
.Visible = msoTrue
.ForeColor.ObjectThemeColor = msoThemeColorBackground2
.ForeColor.TintAndShade = 1
.Transparency = 1
End With
ActiveChart.ChartTitle.Select
Selection.Delete
ActiveChart.Axes(xlCategory).Select
Selection.Delete
ActiveSheet.ChartObjects.Select
Selection.Width = 190
Selection.Height = 209
Selection.Left = 72
Selection.Top = 400
ActiveChart.SetElement (msoElementPrimaryValueAxisNone)
ActiveChart.SetElement (msoElementPrimaryValueGridLinesNone)
ActiveChart.ChartArea.Border.LineStyle = xlNone

‘

End Sub