I used a top-to-bottom color gradient on an X-Y chart (formatted as a thick
line, with no markers) – lower value line regions were red; middle values
orange and high values, at top of chart, were green. It looked great… until
it was opened on 2 other PCs (same OS & Office version), where the gradient
is somehow corrupted: Instead of the color gradient progressing from the
bottom to top of the chart, it changes too quickly along the line, then
starts to repeat part-way up the line. This pattern continues, resulting in
a mixture of colors at different heights on the chart; so some high values on
the line are green, some red, some orange…

P.S. Dear Microsoft: I’m a power user. I've just switched to 2007 and
HATE having to relearn how to get to all the settings. Also hate dealing with
features that have been removed, yet some of the obvious problems &
limitations of earlier versions have still not been fixed! Enough of the UI
eye candy!! – do you realize how many labor hours you are responsible for
wasting?? OK, rant over!

Paul Prince-Wright

FWIW, the chart would be easier to read and cleaner without the
gradient. Or without most of the new formatting made available in Excel
2007.

And no, MS seems not to care for our hours of lost productivity.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
http://peltiertech.com/


On 4/30/2010 11:21 AM, PaulPW wrote:
> I used a top-to-bottom color gradient on an X-Y chart (formatted as a thick
> line, with no markers) – lower value line regions were red; middle values
> orange and high values, at top of chart, were green. It looked great… until
> it was opened on 2 other PCs (same OS& Office version), where the gradient
> is somehow corrupted: Instead of the color gradient progressing from the
> bottom to top of the chart, it changes too quickly along the line, then
> starts to repeat part-way up the line. This pattern continues, resulting in
> a mixture of colors at different heights on the chart; so some high values on
> the line are green, some red, some orange…
>
> P.S. Dear Microsoft: I’m a power user. I've just switched to 2007 and
> HATE having to relearn how to get to all the settings. Also hate dealing with
> features that have been removed, yet some of the obvious problems&
> limitations of earlier versions have still not been fixed! Enough of the UI
> eye candy!! – do you realize how many labor hours you are responsible for
> wasting?? OK, rant over!
>
> Paul Prince-Wright

Thanks for the reply John.
My opinion is that gradients can sometimes add to the chart legibilty and
information it conveys if used judiciously. In this case the XY line
represents a machine speed and is being used to motivate a speed increase.
By having a gradient running from red at lower values to green at higher
values this added a readily understood visual impact to the chart: "red bad;
green good"!

"Jon Peltier" wrote:

> FWIW, the chart would be easier to read and cleaner without the
> gradient. Or without most of the new formatting made available in Excel
> 2007.
>
> And no, MS seems not to care for our hours of lost productivity.
>
> - Jon
> -------
> Jon Peltier
> Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
> http://peltiertech.com/
>
>
> On 4/30/2010 11:21 AM, PaulPW wrote:
> > I used a top-to-bottom color gradient on an X-Y chart (formatted as a thick
> > line, with no markers) – lower value line regions were red; middle values
> > orange and high values, at top of chart, were green. It looked great… until
> > it was opened on 2 other PCs (same OS& Office version), where the gradient
> > is somehow corrupted: Instead of the color gradient progressing from the
> > bottom to top of the chart, it changes too quickly along the line, then
> > starts to repeat part-way up the line. This pattern continues, resulting in
> > a mixture of colors at different heights on the chart; so some high values on
> > the line are green, some red, some orange…
> >
> > P.S. Dear Microsoft: I’m a power user. I've just switched to 2007 and
> > HATE having to relearn how to get to all the settings. Also hate dealing with
> > features that have been removed, yet some of the obvious problems&
> > limitations of earlier versions have still not been fixed! Enough of the UI
> > eye candy!! – do you realize how many labor hours you are responsible for
> > wasting?? OK, rant over!