Excel does not seem to allow the sophisticated level of charting and graphing
that I need. What add-ins from Microsoft or other companies, if any, should
I consider? I'm looking for no-to-low-cost recommendations. I'll pay if I
have to, but would rather avoid unnecessary cost if possible. Thx

No offense intended, but is the problem that XL doesn't have the
sophistication, or does the user not know all the tricks?

Check out Jon Peltier's site:
http://peltiertech.com/

He shows how to create numerous charts that many believe are "impossible",
as well as offer several charting add-ins. The other question you may need to
ask is what is the story you are trying to convey? Sometimes users get caught
up in making "fancier" charts and images that in reality hide/distort the
true data.
--
Best Regards,

Luke M
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"Jay" wrote:

> Excel does not seem to allow the sophisticated level of charting and graphing
> that I need. What add-ins from Microsoft or other companies, if any, should
> I consider? I'm looking for no-to-low-cost recommendations. I'll pay if I
> have to, but would rather avoid unnecessary cost if possible. Thx

Jay wrote:
> Excel does not seem to allow the sophisticated level of charting and graphing
> that I need. What add-ins from Microsoft or other companies, if any, should
> I consider? I'm looking for no-to-low-cost recommendations. I'll pay if I
> have to, but would rather avoid unnecessary cost if possible. Thx

You will have to define what sort of sophisticated graphs you need
before the question becomes answerable. Better in what way?

Excel can do most forms of XY scientific graph with a bit of effort.
XL2007 is *much* slower and the defaults settings are lousy for
scientific work, but that can be worked around. Customising graphs
unfortunately slows it down even more. XL2003 was a high point.

The Excel 2D and 3D data visualisation is rather poor, but packages like
IDL which offer just about every possible option are very expensive.

I offer an XL add-in that creates embedded greyscale or false colour
bitmaps from modest volumes of 2D data. Some people find that useful.

You have to describe what it is that you want to do that is missing.

Regards,
Martin Brown