At 11:35 AM 9/4/99 +0200, Rudolf Hooijenga wrote: >Thank you Lufkin, >it's a pity one cannot do it, but your information saves me a lot of time >looking! > >Rudolf > >----- Original Message ----- >> Unfortunately, there is no way to control the size of Excel graphs other >> than with the mouse. Even Visual Basic for Applications (which allows >> almost total programmatic control of an Excel workbook) does not permit >> this. > Hi Rudolf, Brad and all,
I have also been frustrated with the inability to set the values of the X and Y coordinates in Excel charts. In my analemmatic design spreadsheet, the shape of the elliptical hour circle would change for every new latitude or declination tested. Excel would vary the X/Y value ratio to fit all the points onto the chart no mater how distorted the drawing became. If text or numbers were added to the chart, they would be repositioned on each subsequent change. Eliminating out of range points was a poor but workable solution. One workaround that solves the problem is to set the high and low values for the X and Y axes. For example, setting the X axis values to +/-4 and the Y axis to +3 and -2 results in an almost square chart suitable for a typical analemmatic dial with the dimensions measured in meters. On my system this setting resulted in a Y/X ratio of 0.98 on the screen and 0.95 on the printer. This is close enough for demonstration purposes. The ratio will remain fixed as you change parameters. The out of range values are just not plotted. Like many of Excel's custom features, this is well hidden. Search help for "axis value" and follow the instructions to "Change the scale of the value axis". Even these instructions are difficult to follow. The instruction missing is to RIGHT click when the arrow of the cursor is on the axis and the tag says "value axis". From there on it is straight forward and gives excellent results. I have incorporated this revision in the analemmatic design spreadsheet. I can send it as an e-mail attachment on request from anyone who is interested. It is 100 kb. On a related matter, I see you have been importing charts into Word. The latest version of Fer De Vries program, Zwvlak95, allows this by saving plots in the clipboard. These can then be pasted into MS Office programs such as Word, Powerpoint and Excel. Fer's program does a wonderful job of creating the lines and allowing adjustment of the position and scale. It now even offers different colors for the lines. The clipped files are easily pasted into the other programs where you can add numbers, text, artwork etc., and then print the results. Although the draw subroutines in the MS Office Suite look and feel the same for the various programs, they are not. I have had the best results pasting the clipped Zwvlak95 plots onto Excel spreadsheets. It was easier with Excel to put the numbers and text where I wanted using the format I specified. Word would not allow accurate placement of the text boxes. The template I was using in Powerpoint did not allow free formatting. It worked very well in Excel to produce a great design graph. I can send a sample copy of the spreadsheet for the Time to Sunset dial for the RASC Observatory site of the Alberta Star Party. It is 66 kb. I hope these tips are useful. These programs are great design tools for so many things including sundials. It is difficult to learn their how to use them for more than a small fraction of their capability. I need all the tips I can get, even if it is just asking the right question and learning what cannot be done. Roger Bailey Walking Shadow Designs N 51 W 115
