Custom Error Bars in Excel 2008: Where did they go?

[gmed...@officeformac.com]

Custom error bars is a feature I've found myself needing quite frequently this semester now that I have a physics class. Error bars are required on every chart for every lab, and custom error bars were the only way to get them right.

This wasn't a problem in Excel 2003; that had the options I needed, but it was not Intel compatible (it ran really slow). Upgrading to office 2008 was going to be great (fast, new look, better features), but it has turned into a nightmare. I am forced to rely on remote access to my parent's computer (with office 2007) to do my homework, and installing Excel 2004 again won't be an option for weeks.

As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be any reason to remove custom error bars from the chart options in Excel 2008, but they are gone.

All I want to know is: Where did custom error bars go? Why are they gone? And will they ever be brought back, or will I be stuck with Excel 2004?

[Bob Greenblatt]

We are just users like you. So:

All I want to know is: Where did custom error bars go?

They are gone. They are not anywhere, just not a feature of this release of Excel.

Why are they gone?

Don’t know for sure, but probably because Microsoft had to make some critical schedule vs. feature decisions; and as a result, cut the feature to make the shipping schedule.

And will they ever be brought back,

Your guess is as good as mine.

or will I be stuck with Excel 2004?

If you really need them, I guess you are stuck with Excel 2004 until (if ever) they are implemented in Excel 2008, or Excel 2012, or Excel 5000.

You need to express your concern and disappointment to Microsoft by using Help-Send Feedback.

--
Bob Greenblatt [MVP], Macintosh
bobgreenblattATmsnDOTcom

[gmed...@officeformac.com]

Thanks for the reply, but I had a feeling that was the answer that I would get. It is frustrating, but I'll have to find a way to deal with it.

I did take your advice to send Microsoft feedback.

[Unknown]

I feel your pain, because that is my pain as well. It drives me nuts!!! You suppose to have UPGRADE, instead we get DOWNgrade...

I have to move back to my PC just to do my data anlysis which requires custum error bars!!!

[jpdphd]

Methinks that Excel 2004 is a great tool to be "stuck" with! Very few
benefits come with the many headaches I've been reading about.

[gmed...@officeformac.com]

Excel 2004 is fine... except that it is not Intel native. That is why I was so excited to upgrade: I was tired of painfully slow applications with strange compatibility issues (like Word's notebook view crashing when I stopped the audio recordings sometimes).

Other than Excel 2008, I'm pretty happy with this new version of Office. Even Entourage is useable now. I just wish I didn't have to downgrade Excel and / or use a different computer just to make my charts.

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Bob Greenblatt <b...@nospam.com> wrote:

> > All I want to know is: Where did custom error bars go?
> They are gone. They are not anywhere, just not a feature of this release of
> Excel.

What's interesting is that they're not really gone. It's just the user
interface to add them that's gone.
If you add them in Excel 2004 and then open the document in Excel 2008,
they show up.....

My *guess* is that it is a bug and I sure hope it will soon be corrected
:-\

Corentin

--
--- Mac:MS MVP http://www.cortig.net/wordpress/ ---
http://www.mvps.org - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
MVPs are not MS employees - Les MVP ne travaillent pas pour MS
Remove "NoSpam" to e-mail me - Retirez "NoSpam" pour m'écrire

[Bob Greenblatt]

On 2/11/08 1:30 PM, in article
1ic5c04.1huhhmbqhh3nkN%korve...@NoSpam.mvps.org, "Corentin Cras-Méneur"
<korve...@NoSpam.mvps.org> wrote:

> Bob Greenblatt <b...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>>> All I want to know is: Where did custom error bars go?
>> They are gone. They are not anywhere, just not a feature of this release of
>> Excel.
>
> What's interesting is that they're not really gone. It's just the user
> interface to add them that's gone.
> If you add them in Excel 2004 and then open the document in Excel 2008,
> they show up.....
>
> My *guess* is that it is a bug and I sure hope it will soon be corrected
> :-\
>
> Corentin

Yes, I think there were a lot of things that were "left in" for
compatibility, but removed due to the development effort to support the UI.
I agree, I hope we'll see a bunch of these back before long.

[Joe Hanson]

Hi all,

They are still there, just not very easy to find. After you make your
graph, click so the whole data series is selected. Then right-click
and hit "Format Data Series" and error bars is an option in there.

Cheers,
Joe

On Feb 11, 2:24 pm, Bob Greenblatt <b...@nospam.com> wrote:
> On 2/11/08 1:30 PM, in article

> 1ic5c04.1huhhmbqhh3nkN%korvent...@NoSpam.mvps.org, "Corentin Cras-Méneur"

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Joe Hanson <hanso...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> They are still there, just not very easy to find. After you make your
> graph, click so the whole data series is selected. Then right-click
> and hit "Format Data Series" and error bars is an option in there.

That brings up the possibility to add error bars, but not the custom
ones (or I really can't see the option).
You can use a fixed value, a percentage, etc, but not a custom value for
each bar.

[ma...@officeformac.com]

I am so glad I am not the only one with this problem!! I've been driving myself crazy the past day with formating my charts in Excel 2008. Corentin--thanks for the tip about editing in 2004 then opening in 2008. Although, it's not the ideal way to make charts--it works.

I just can't believe they left out the custom error bar feature! It's vital to the accurate portrayal of any data set!

Mandy

[Mattias Soop]

The absence of real error bars in graphs has now forced me to look elsewhere for graphing even the simplest of data. Others may be interested in some easy-to-learn alternatives.

I use Gigawiz Citrin and have tried KaleidaGraph too. These are powerful and, for academic users, not that expensive.

[Lystrablue]

Our entire laboratory will be staying with Excel 2004 until we have custom error bars.
We cannot publish our data without them. :chagrin:

[Pat McMillan]

We certainly hear everyone's pain over this omission and want you to know
that we're working on getting this addressed as soon as we can.

Thanks,

Pat

On 3/20/08 5:44 PM, in article ee8be...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"Lystrablue" <mo...@tpgnospam.com.au> wrote:

--
Pat McMillan
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft Corp.
This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[Michal Kahle]

OpenOffice 3.0 is going to have this feature. It is already in CVS and you can test it. They also promise that it will run natively on mac.

[jum...@officeformac.com]

has this already been fixed?
customization of error bars is an essential tool for scientific applications!
I would appreciate an update of the current situation.

[Bob Greenblatt]

On 3/25/08 12:43 PM, in article ee8be...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"jum...@officeformac.com" <jum...@officeformac.com> wrote:

Search this forum for similar topics. Microsoft has already stated that they
are aware of the problem and working on it. However, there is no word on
when or even if it will be fixed. You can usually find the latest news on
Mactopia.

[Nathan Bryant]

I agree, we need Custom Error bar please ...

But better yet, how about the ability to &lt;B&gt;select a series of columns &lt;/B&gt;and have the option to produce a column graph with a bar representing the &lt;B&gt;mean of each column and have error bars that are the standard error or standard deviation automatically calculated from the data column!&lt;/B&gt;

"Custom Error Bars" were essential to generating figures for scientific publications, but they were also a real pain when all you ever really needed was to make a nice graph (often showing the mean value of a group) with simple error bars that actually meant something.

All the error bar options in excel other than "Custom" are pretty much useless for this and the only reason we want "custom" is because &lt;B&gt;Excel completely lacks the really feature we want:

Graphs were bars represent data ranges, automatically calculated with options of error bars calculated from that same data. &lt;/B&gt;

The only thing close to this in Excel is to always use list manager and then pivot table reports or to do it all by hand. The more time you have to make a new row just to calculate something like a mean (what you really want to graph) and then another to get the standard error ... just leaves more room for human formula error / confusion / frustration / the want to just go and use another software package.

One fix would be to allow us to put a formula in the data selection bar for the "Y" value (for example) .... like y=AVG(A1:A10) ... then have it just understand that if I say "Standard Deviation" for my error bars, I mean STDEV(A1:A10); likewise with standard error.

Please, please, please makes this easier to do. There is a HUGE body of academics that would be very grateful.

N.Bryant - Grad student at UF

[Pat McMillan]

Thank you for your feedback. Those are great ideas for ways to make custom
error bars more useful (once we get them back). I will be passing those on
to our development team for consideration.

Thanks,

Pat

On 3/31/08 12:00 PM, in article ee8be...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Nathan
Bryant" <nbr...@ufl.edu> wrote:

--