Hui’s Excel Report Printer

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Over a decade ago I was working on a very large and complex budget model, come to think of it I still am?

It involved 4 linked Excel workbooks, about 30 worksheets, all different, and multiple views of each worksheet.

There were regular Worksheets and Chart Sheets interspersed throughout.

Some of the Ranges had Outlined/Grouped Totals that were indented on some reports, but not on others depending on whom the various reports were going to.

It was a great budget model until you had to print a copy of it.

And of course the different levels of Managers all want different reports etc, etc.

 

The Solution

To solve this I developed a simple VBA routine which has evolved over the years to what is presented here.

The basic idea is to add a Printing Control sheet to your workbook.

This sheet has a list of print views, not Excel views, of various pages within the current workbook.

Each page can be setup as you wish and allows for a number of common parameters for each printed page.

Pages can be listed, multiple times if required, with different ranges or outlining selected each time

The Code handles Worksheets and Chartsheets, Normal and Named Ranges, Page Orientation, Page Size, Page Grouping and Headers/Footers.

As a user you setup the sheets as a list in the order you want them, with appropriate parameters.

The code then:

  • Loops through the list,
  • Obtain the parameters,
  • Sets up the print page and
  • Prints it.

You just need to sit back and wait for the printer to jam.

HOW DO I USE IT

Download the sample file here Excel 97-03, Excel 2007/10

You can use the sample file as is, for demo purposes or read on later where I describe how to use this in your workbooks.

Open the workbook and Goto the “Print_Control” worksheet.

Browse through the various Headings in Row 4 and field values below them.

Note that some of the Row 4 cells have comments in which explain what options are available.

Each field is described below:

No.

The Row No. in the list of page layouts available.

This has no use except when someone says the 5th page should be…

Description/Header

A text field that is used as a Reminder of the layout of the Page Setup also serves as a Centred Header.

Status

Print = On

Don’t Print = Off

The code only prints the pages marked as On.

Sheet

The name of the Worksheet or Chartsheet you want to print

Area

The Range on the Sheet that you want printed

Ignored for Chartsheets.

Land/Port

Specify if the page should be printed Landscape or Portrait

Ignored for Chartsheets.

Chartsheets are printed in Landscape.

Pages Wide

How many pages wide should the Range be printed on

This is fixed at 1 for Chartsheets.

Pages Tall

How many pages tall should the Range be printed out on

This is fixed at 1 for Chartsheets.

Copies

How Many Copies do you want of that individual page.

Rows & Columns

If outline/grouping is used specify what level of Indentation should be used for the Rows and Columns.

0 – Leave as is

1 – Indent 1 level

8  – Indent 8 levels

The maximum indentation is 8

Ignored for Chartsheets.

Footer (Left)

A description field printed as lower left footer.

No. of Copies

This specifies the Number of Copies of the Whole Report you want

Print All “On” Areas

The Print All “On” Areas Button executes the code and prints out a number of copies of the report as specified in the various page setups.

The printing is done on the default printer on your PC,

Important: Ensure that the printer you want to use for the job is set as the default before you start Excel.

You can print to a PDF file by specifying your Adobe or other PDF Printer as the Default Printer.

I’m sorry, This doesn’t fix the printing multiple pages to multiple files when printing to PDF issue.

 

Warning ! I maybe old school but I still recommend saving before printing !

 

HELP

There is limited help built into the system, That’s what this Post is doing.

Some of the field headings have comments which show what values are acceptable in those fields.

HOW DO I ADD THIS TO MY WORKBOOK ?

To add this to your workbook, copy the Print_Control worksheet to your workbook

  1. Open your workbook.
  2. Open the Demo File
  3. Copy the Print_Control worksheet by Right Clicking on the Print_Control tab, and copy to your workbook.
  4. Run the VBA Code using the “Setup Print Control Named Formula” Button

That’s it.

All the code required for the printing is part of the Print_Control page.

 

HOW DOES THE VBA WORK ?

The following describes the VBA Code driving this worksheet.

To examine this goto VBA (Alt F11)

Select the workbook and double click on Sheet0 (Print_Control)

The code should appear in the right hand window

If you are unfamiliar with VBA it may be worth going through Chandoo’s Crash Course in VBA

There are 2 Subroutines and a Function in this system which are documented below

 

Print_Reports

This is the main subroutine that drives the printing

It is called by the Print All On Button and when finished returns the user to the Print_Control worksheet.

All the VBA code is in RED,

Comments and notes are in BLACK before the line or section they refer to.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

At the start of the Print_Reports subroutine, setup variables for later use

Option Explicit

Public Sub Print_Reports()

Dim PrintArea As Variant

Dim i As Integer

Dim j As Integer

Dim sht As Long

Dim Orientation As String

Dim NCopies As Integer

Dim PWide As Integer

Dim PTall As Integer

Dim Footer As String

Dim Header As String

Dim Sheets As String

Dim gRow As Integer

Dim gCol As Integer

Dim PaperSize As String

Dim msg As String

Dim tmp As String

Turn off the Automatic Calculation so that it is faster and isn’t as jerky

Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual

This loads the entire array of the Print_Control page into an array called PrintArea

PrintArea = Worksheets(“Print_Control”).Range(“Print_Control”).Value

This sets up a loop for the No of Total Copies of the Whole report

For j = 1 To [Copies].Value ‘Loop through the No of Copies

This sets up a loop for the to check each line of the Print Control area

For i = 1 To UBound(PrintArea, 1) ‘Loop through the print area

If the Column Status is On print using that line of settings

If UCase(PrintArea(i, 3)) = “ON” Then ‘When On is enabled Print using the settings

Extract the settings from the stored array, row i

Header = PrintArea(i, 2) ‘Set Header variable

Orientation = PrintArea(i, 6) ‘Set Orientation variable

PWide = PrintArea(i, 8 ) ‘Set Pages Wide variable

PTall = PrintArea(i, 9) ‘Set Pages Tall variable

NCopies = PrintArea(i, 10) ‘Set No Copies variable

gRow = PrintArea(i, 11) ‘Set Row Group Expansion

gCol = PrintArea(i, 12) ‘Set Column Group Expansion

Footer = PrintArea(i, 13) ‘Set Footer variable

Check paper sizes against the built in page sizes

If PrintArea(i, 7) = “A4” Then

PaperSize = 9

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “A3” Then

PaperSize = 8

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “A5” Then

PaperSize = 11

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “Legal” Then

PaperSize = 5

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “Letter” Then

PaperSize = 1

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “Quarto” Then

PaperSize = 15

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “Executive” Then

PaperSize = 7

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “B4” Then

PaperSize = 12

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “B5” Then

PaperSize = 13

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “10×14” Then

PaperSize = 16

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “11×17” Then

PaperSize = 17

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “Csheet” Then

PaperSize = 24

ElseIf PrintArea(i, 7) = “Dsheet” Then

PaperSize = 25

Else

PaperSize = 9 ‘Defaults to A4

End If

Activate the relevant sheet

This checks that the sheet exists first

tmp = PrintArea(i, 4)

SheetExists(tmp) is a UDF that’s checks if the sheet exists and returns True or False

If Not SheetExists(tmp) Then

msg = “Sheet ‘” + PrintArea(i, 4) + “‘ not found.” + vbCrLf + “Check the sheets Name.”

msg = msg + vbCrLf + vbCrLf + “Processing will continue for remaining sheets.”

tmp = MsgBox(msg, vbExclamation, “Sheet not Found”)

Else

The sheet exists now process

Select the sheet

Application.Sheets(PrintArea(i, 4)).Select

Check if it is a Worksheet or a Chartsheet

If ActiveSheet.Type = -4167 Then ‘Its a worksheet

Turn off screen updating

Application.ScreenUpdating = False

Select the relevnt area of the sheet

ActiveSheet.PageSetup.PrintArea = PrintArea(i, 5) ‘Select the relevent Print Area of the Sheet

Set Outline levels

ActiveSheet.Outline.ShowLevels RowLevels:=gRow, ColumnLevels:=gCol ‘Set Outline Grouping

Apply print settings

With ActiveSheet.PageSetup ‘Set print settings

.PrintTitleRows = “”

.PrintTitleColumns = “”

.LeftHeader = “”

.CenterHeader = Header ‘User Defined Header (Shift to Left or Right as required)

.RightHeader = “”

.LeftFooter = Footer ‘User Defined Footer (Shift to Left or Right as required)

.CenterFooter = “”

.RightFooter = “”

.LeftMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.1)

.RightMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.1)

.TopMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1.0)

.BottomMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.4)

.HeaderMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.1)

.FooterMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.3)

.PrintHeadings = False

.PrintGridlines = False

.PrintComments = xlPrintNoComments

.CenterHorizontally = False

.CenterVertically = False

.Draft = False

.PaperSize = PaperSize ‘ User Defined Paper Size

.FirstPageNumber = xlAutomatic

.Order = xlDownThenOver

.BlackAndWhite = False

.Zoom = False

.FitToPagesWide = PWide ‘User Defined No Pages Wide

.FitToPagesTall = PTall ‘User Defined No Pages Tall

.PrintErrors = xlPrintErrorsDisplayed

End With

Apply page orientation settings

If Orientation = “L” Then ‘User Defined Page Orientation

ActiveSheet.PageSetup.Orientation = xlLandscape

Else

ActiveSheet.PageSetup.Orientation = xlPortrait

End If

Turn Screen updating back on

Application.ScreenUpdating = True

Finished setting up Worksheet goto the Printing area

Else ‘Its a Chart page

Turn Screen updating off

Application.ScreenUpdating = False

Apply print settings

With ActiveChart.PageSetup

.LeftHeader = “”

.CenterHeader = Header

.RightHeader = “”

.LeftFooter = Footer

.CenterFooter = “”

.RightFooter = “”

.LeftMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.1)

.RightMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.1)

.TopMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1#)

.BottomMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.4)

.HeaderMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.1)

.FooterMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.3)

.ChartSize = xlScreenSize

.PrintQuality = 600Change to 300 for Excel 97-03

.CenterHorizontally = True

.CenterVertically = True

.Orientation = xlLandscape

.Draft = False

.OddAndEvenPagesHeaderFooter = False ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.DifferentFirstPageHeaderFooter = False ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.EvenPage.LeftHeader.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.EvenPage.CenterHeader.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.EvenPage.RightHeader.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.EvenPage.LeftFooter.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.EvenPage.CenterFooter.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.EvenPage.RightFooter.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.FirstPage.LeftHeader.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.FirstPage.CenterHeader.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.FirstPage.RightHeader.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.FirstPage.LeftFooter.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.FirstPage.CenterFooter.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.FirstPage.RightFooter.Text = “” ‘Removed from 97/03 Ver

.PaperSize = PaperSize

.FirstPageNumber = xlAutomatic

.BlackAndWhite = False

.Zoom = 100

End With

Turn Screen Updating back on

Application.ScreenUpdating = True

End If

Now Print the active sheet using user defined No. Copies

ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintOut Copies:=NCopies, Collate:=True

End If

End If

Next i

Next j

Clear PrintArea array, just in case

PrintArea = Null

Turn Auto Calculation back on

Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic

Go back to the Print Control sheet

Application.Sheets(“Print_Control”).Select

End Sub

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The SheetExists Function

This is a Function that is used by the Print_Reports subroutine to check if a sheet exists.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Function SheetExists(SheetName As String) As Boolean

‘ This function Returns TRUE if the sheet exists in the active workbook

SheetExists = False ‘Set default value of SheetExists

On Error GoTo NoSuchSheet ‘Set error trapping such that if the sheet doesn’t exist it will exit

Check length of sheet name, if the sheet exists it will return a value, otherwise an error

If Len(Sheets(SheetName).Name) > 0 Then

The sheet exists so set SheetExists = True and exit

SheetExists = True

Exit Function

End If

NoSuchSheet:

The sheet doesn’t exists so use default SheetExists = False and exit

End Function

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The Setup_Print_Control_Named_Formula Subroutine

This is a simple subroutine that sets up the 2 named formula for use the first time a sheet is used.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Sub Setup_Print_Control_Named_Formula()

Setup Named Formula “Print_Control” which is the table of settings

ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add Name:=”Print_Control”, RefersToR1C1:= _

“=OFFSET(Print_Control!R4C2,1,,COUNTA(Print_Control!R5C2:R24C2),COUNTA(Print_Control!R4))”

ActiveWorkbook.Names(“Print_Control”).Comment = _

“Used by the Print_Reports Subroutine”

Setup Named Formula “Copies” which is the No of Copies of the Whole Report

ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add Name:=”Copies”, RefersToR1C1:= _

“=Print_Control!R26C13”

ActiveWorkbook.Names(“Copies”).Comment = “Specifies the No. of Copies for the Print_Reports Subroutine”

End Sub

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

NAMED FORMULA

The code relies on two Named Formulas

Copies:

=Print_Control!$L$27

Print_Control:

=OFFSET(Print_Control!$B$4,1,,COUNTA(Print_Control!$B$5:$B$24),COUNTA(Print_Control!$4:$4))

Automatically adjusts the Print_Control Named Formula for the number of Page Setup lines and Fields to be processed

If you have queries about how any of the above code works, please let me know in the comments below:

 

WHAT DOES THE ARRAY “PrintArea” DO ?

The print area array stores the values of the Print_Control range in a 2 dimensional array which represents the Print_Control range.

This is done for a few reasons, but simply it is faster as it results in less reading of the worksheet

It also allows more flexibility in the subsequent processing as all the data is in one area.

 

DOWNLOADS

Download the sample file here Excel 97-03, Excel 2007/10

 

WHAT’S NEXT

There are a number of parameters used in the Print Setup area which are not used or not used in the 97/03 version.

The code above is easily extended to include these if you desire.

One day when I have a spare moment (Most likely in 2025!) I will add the option for automatic incremental Page Numbers.

 

CLOSING

This code has saved, my staff and I, hundreds and hundreds of hours over the past decade whilst printing complex Excel workbooks.

This functionality was also one of the more requested issues from our poll of 3 months ago We Want Your Ideas!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have ?

 

Updates

I will be extending the functionality of this in the future and so if you have any suggestions, lets hear them in the comments below:

 

How have you tackled large print jobs ?

I look forward to your comments below:

 

Hui…

For a list of my other contributions at Chandoo.org please visit; Hui.

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46 Responses to “6 Best charts to show % progress against goal”

  1. Andreas says:

    Chandoo, thanks for another interesting post.

    One thing I'm missing is the question: What is progress, what does one want to know exactly?

    I'm asking the question because I think of progress as not the same as "state of completion." Percentages/bars, etc., as shown above, are great to communicate state of completion, but less so for progress.

    That's because project progress is how state of completion *relates to* the resources spent so far. Resources can be things like dollars spent, hours spent or project time passed. For example, 5% would be "good progress" in the first week of a one-year project, but terrible progress in the last week of the project.

    The way I prefer to report progress is as a simple line chart with time on the x axis, and maybe a marking for the end point (and maybe an "ideal"/"as planned" line).

    If it really must be a single number, you could go a EVA-ish route and divide the current % of completion by the current % of project time passed, which gives you a schedule performance index (1 or bigger than 1 = good; smaller than 1 = bad). For this, your suggested charts should work great!

    • David says:

      I avoid 'progress' except where I can objectively assess progress, such as counting bricks laid or concrete poured. For intellectual work, I don't think that its possible to measure progress to completion with any reliability or credibility. I prefer to update forcasts of completion date, because that's where the effect of completion on dependent activities, deliverables and outturn value of the project is felt. This is also referred to as the 0-100 method. An activity is set at 0 complete until its actually finished, when it is set at 100% complete.

  2. Doug H says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    Great post! I have a preference towards thermometer charts too mainly because of the target/actual comparison.

    Just an FYI...seems like the the screen shot for the pies #4 are under the #5 heading. Also the pies conditional formatting is something that doesn't accurately portray completion since the pies are segmented into quarters.

    AND also a little trivia...those "pies" are called Harvey Balls, named after Harvey Poppel...

  3. Eric C. Lind says:

    Chandoo,

    I wonder. Is there a trick to unzipping your files?
    I always seem to end up with a series of XML files rather than an XLSX.

    Thanks a lot. 🙂

    Eric~

  4. Mario says:

    Hi Chandoo,
    Thank you again for this amazing help you are so resourcefull to make us little bit more amazing everyday.

    When I click on the link on the page "http://img.chandoo.org/c/best-charts-for-goal-progress-comparison.xlsx" it is always bringing me to a zip file with all XML files without the XLSX file. I tried with mozilla and IE.

    Thank you

  5. Chandoo says:

    @All having trouble with download file.

    1. Download the file.
    2. Rename the extension as .xlsx
    3. Double click or open it in Excel

    • Ian H says:

      Doesn't make any difference Chandoo, still end up with a zip file full of xml related files/folders

      • Hui... says:

        @Ian H
        Download the zipped file and rename it to *.xlsx
        where * is the filename

        ps: Great name!

        • Ian H says:

          Many thanks for your help Hui but not sure why you are repeating what Chadoo said and which I first posted to because it didn't work for me. I did as he said and it didn't work, hence my post.

          Chandoo says:
          March 11, 2014 at 1:52 am
          @All having trouble with download file.

          1. Download the file.
          2. Rename the extension as .xlsx
          3. Double click or open it in Excel

    • Chandoo says:

      Also, please note that we are investigating an issue with our webserver settings that may be causing this behavior. Sorry for the inconvenience. I am hoping to get this fixed in next 48 hours.

  6. Belle says:

    I used thermometer chart & conditional formatting using traffic lights. I just recently completed a dashboard I hope you can take a look but don't know where to send it. Thanks.

  7. Manoj Varghese says:

    The in-cell bar charts is very interesting. This is not to be used as one can easly do manipulations by changing fonts/ font size etc

  8. Prisha says:

    Hi..this is really helpful..
    but I hve one quick ques..is it possible to hve conditional formating for chart graph based on text value and not the numbers..if I take your example project one bar should be red...if data is project 2 then it should be blue..basically we mke chart based on countries n each countries are assigned specific color...so I want a way where I can use conditionsl formating and not do it manaually each month.

  9. Mark says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    Great article and will be very useful.

    One question - is it possible to have in-cell bar chart and the percentage complete (similar to icons)?

  10. Arup Chakraborty says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    I am a great fan of you since i stumbled upon your blog. Your blog is very informative and insightful. I liked the way you presented the 5 steps using thermometer chart. I was very much inspired by that and tried to make my own version with 20 tasks to complete. On and after 17th step it was going downward. So I wanted to ask you that is there any limitation to thermometer chart

  11. […] shows us the 6 best charts to use, when you want to show your progress against a goal. There’s a sample file to download, so you can experiment on your […]

  12. Istiyak Shaikh says:

    Is there any xhart is available which can show achivement percentage it may 80% or 120% means more an set target.?

  13. Ross says:

    Hi Chandoo,
    Love your site. I have a small question regarding plotting data that contains ranking. I have 2 fields - Country, Rank. Note that i don't have the absolute values from which the rank has been calculated. So what is the best way of showing this on a graph given only the above 2 fields. Appreciate it

    Regds,
    Ross

  14. Vignesh says:

    Dear Chandoo Sir,

    Really awesome post.
    Thanks.

    Vignesh.V

  15. David Macdonald says:

    We can always rely on Chandoo to explain to us clearly things that perhaps we already knew but weren't putting into practice the best way.
    A limit I never liked about data bars was that they are monochrome - one colour for positive values, one colour for negative. So a couple of weeks ago I sat down to figure out a workaround. If anyone's interested...
    http://digimac.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/multicoloured-data-bars-in-excel/

    • David Macdonald says:

      Epic fail on my part! After three months I just found out that what worked on my machine, didn't work on others.
      Problem solved, more functions added.

  16. Brian says:

    The link above at
    To hide them use ;;; custom cell formatting code (how to).
    appears to be incorrect. However, using the downloaded file and selecting a cell(s) from that example provides the easy answer.

    I wondered if the pies could have a color other than black and white (which, of course, would raise the color-blindness issue that you referred to with the traffic lights example).

  17. Aden says:

    Hi Chandoo!

    Thanks for the informative post!

    I have managed to understand and replicate all of the progress graphs except one, the thermo bar. I read up on the tutorial of how to create them, and I understand almost everything about the look and use of the bar, but one problem I am having is that I cannot seem to "center" the bar into the cell like you did. The reason being that even though the highest input (progress) percent is 100%, the program automatically puts in another 20%, so instead of 100% stopping at the end of the graph, it stops 20% short and I have a huge space at the end because of it.

    How did you counter that problem? I have been trying for hours to fix it

  18. Ken says:

    Thanks. I started running a project recently, and I found your charts to be really helpful in tracking it's progress. I'm glad I found your page.

  19. Chulapo says:

    Hi Chandoo!
    Great stuff for my customized project moving forward. However, when I use the blue block bars, the %ages spark up to smt like 5000% and cannot lower them nor scale them. If I input manually such as 50% without formatting a column, the bar for 50% e.g., will fill the cell completely, so that's kind of odd... what to do?
    Thanks!

    • shakira says:

      I guess I have the same problem. When I put 50 and click on the percentage, it is giving me 500%. Can someone help us on this. Thanks in advance

  20. Lisa says:

    Hey,

    Thank you for making this page. I do have one problem with the thermo graphs. Whenever I try to drag the graphs from one cell to the cell beneath it, the data remains selected on the former.

    For example, if I had a thermo with a target number in A1 and an actual number in B1 with my thermo in C1, when I drag my thermo into C2, C3, etc., all of the graphs show the results from A1 and B1.

    Is there a way to have these graphs update automatically as I will be regularly working in an excel file with hundred of entries?

    P.S. I removed the $ symbols from 'Select Data', but that did not fix the problem.

    Thanks again!

    • Hui... says:

      @Lisa

      Not sure but it sounds like the new cells have Conditional formats applied

      Select just the new cells
      Select Conditional formatting, Clear Rules, Clear Rules from selected Cells

  21. Tito says:

    Hi Chandoo.
    I am charting on some defaulter data where greater than zero is not desirable. Problem is that I have to highlight zero as target and anything above as undesirable. Seek your help

  22. Pedro says:

    Hi Chandoo
    Great post!
    But I am wondering why bullet chart is not on this list. Is there a reason for its absence?

  23. Sari says:

    Thank you for these instructions. The bonus 5 Step Progress Meter you included would be perfect for my project. Where can I find the instructions?

  24. Antonio says:

    Hi,
    Do you know of any simple way to reduce the Data Bars padding so that they fit within the cells?
    Thanks and great posy!
    Regards

  25. Adorn Age Defense says:

    Appreciating the dedication you put into your website and in depth information you
    provide. It's good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn't the same out of date rehashed information. Wonderful
    read! I've bookmarked your site and I'm including your
    RSS feeds to my Google account.

  26. Isobel says:

    With #1 and #2, how would you also apply a red amber green to the bars (is it possible within chart formatting or would you need to utilise CF)?

    I'm thinking of an in cell bar of some kind which will show against a known goal end date how far along with the goal you are (this is to be used for 'how many of the X number of people that I need to train in X timeframe, have been trained and therefore which of each training group is on track to complete on time or falling behind'.

    So there would be knowns of number of people, target end date but I'd want it to reflect accurately as some groups of trainees might only have 50 in so their 50% done would be different to a group of trainees where their group had 200 people in it - but 50% would still be the same. Somewhere there'd probably need to be something which noted that there was a different volume of trainees so it could but the remaining effort to train people into context?

    Hope that makes some kind of sense, I could be waffling!

  27. […] charts.  Its got things like “Best Charts to Compare Actuals vs Targets” and “Best charts to show progress“. I love me some charts […]

  28. Nawa says:

    Thanks a lot my dear.
    very Useful it for me.

  29. MarcoX says:

    Another great post, thanks for sharing.

  30. Noah says:

    Chandoo, I am just starting an Excel class, and everything in the class is new to me. I am learning how to use all of these great charts but don't know what they are all used for. Thank you for your post and I think I will be able to use this down the road throughout my business career

  31. in the above charts , Chart #2: Conditional Formatting Data Bars

    ->Assume if we have completed 35% of work it is showing in Blue color ,in the same cell remaining 65% of work should shows in some color , how to show?

  32. RACHIT NAMDEV says:

    Hi Sir,

    This is Rachit and I am a big fan of you and your work. This is to request you please make a video for Beverages Sales performance data analysis in Excel.

    Regards,

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