Odd Excel 2007 behavior: copied chart linked to source sheet

[dparizo]

Hi all,

I'm finding that Excel 2007 has a strange behavior when it comes to copying
sheets that contain Pivot Tables & Pivot Charts.

Let's say that on Worksheet A, I have a Pivot Table A and Pivot Chart A that
is linked to it. If I change Pivot Table A, Pivot Chart A will change to
reflect. So far, so good.

Now, let's say I COPY Worksheet A to Worksheet B. Now I have Pivot Table B
and Pivot Chart B on the new worksheet.

Problem: Pivot Chart B is STILL LINKED to Pivot Table A! If I change Pivot
Table A, both charts change! If I change Pivot Chart B, neither chart
changes.

This is new in Excel 2007, and it's a huge annoyance for me, as I create
hundreds of charts by copying worksheets.

Anyone know a way to get Excel 2007 to behave like Excel 2003 on this one?
Thanks!

Doug

 

[MikeM_work]

Doug:
I found the same behavior: when copying a worksheet containing a chart
object, the chart on the new worksheet continued to be sourced back to the
original worksheet. This is a real difficulty when re-sourcing complex,
custom charts.

Check this out from the MS Knowledge Base:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931377/en-us

It's definitely a bug; they're working on it... at least there's a workaround.

 

[dparizo]

Great answer, and thanks for the link Mike!

Doug:
I found the same behavior: when copying a worksheet containing a chart
object, the chart on the new worksheet continued to be sourced back to the
original worksheet. This is a real difficulty when re-sourcing complex,
custom charts.

Check this out from the MS Knowledge Base:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931377/en-us

It's definitely a bug; they're working on it... at least there's a workaround.

 

[Jon Peltier]

This was unfortunately introduced in 2007, because it works as expected in
earlier versions.

Another way around it, if you're going to use a particular sheet and its
chart frequently, is to copy the sheet to another workbook, then save the
new workbook as a template. Whenever you need a copy of the sheet, right
click on a sheet tab, and select this template to insert a new sheet based
on the template.

- Jon

 

[Doug_F]

Not sure if this is related, but we have found the following (slightly
different issue).
Tab has data and a chart linked to the data.
Use 'copy/Move' to clone the tab.
If Excel is at SP2, the new cloned tab's chart points to the cloned data.
If it's not at SP2, the new cloned tab's chart points to the original tab.

Big fun!