Program a combination chart using VBA

[Guest]

I use excel 2003 and when I try to use the macro recoder to create a custom
chart type of "Line - Column on 2 Axes" the recoder creates the following
code and an example of the data is below the code. The chart that is creaded
the first time when recording the macro is perfect.

However when I try to excute the macro I either receive an error message
runtime error 1004, "Methods axes of object - chart failed when I name the
axes of the Series or

I simply have a column chart and not a combination chart.

What I am trying to do is have a single chart that shows staff in column and
Volumn in line by time of day. I can make it work perfect by hand but I am
unable to write a VBA routine that will accomplish the same thing again. VBA
acts like it doesn't reconize the Chart Type.

Please help and Thanks in advance

'Macro Code
Charts.Add
ActiveChart.ApplyCustomType ChartType:=xlBuiltIn, TypeName:= _
"Line - Column on 2 Axes"
ActiveChart.SetSourceData
Source:=Sheets("Data").Range("B3761"),PlotBy:= _ xlColumns
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsObject, Name:="Data"
With ActiveChart.Axes(xlCategory)
.HasMajorGridlines = False
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
With ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue)
.HasMajorGridlines = True
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
ActiveChart.HasLegend = True
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
Selection.Position = xlBottom
With Selection.Interior
.ColorIndex = 36
.Pattern = 1
End With
End Sub

Spread Sheet Data
Col B Col C Col D
Row 37 Hours Staff Volumn
Row 38 0:00 2 52280
Row 39 1:00 2 52280
Row 40 2:00 2 52280
Row 41 3:00 1 52280
Row 42 4:00 0 52280
Row 43 5:00 0 52280
Row 44 6:00 0 52280
Row 45 7:00 0 52280
Row 46 8:00 0 95280
Row 47 9:00 0 58380
Row 48 10:00 0 52380
Row 49 11:00 0 58980
Row 50 12:00 4 81280
Row 51 13:00 4 117080
Row 52 14:00 4 70880
Row 53 15:00 3 96100
Row 54 16:00 4 91900
Row 55 17:00 4 27600
Row 56 18:00 3 62300
Row 57 19:00 2 44900
Row 58 20:00 2 22700
Row 59 21:00 2 9000
Row 60 22:00 2 0
Row 61 23:00 2 0

 

[Ronald Dodge]

The first thing that I would do is avoid using Active<object> in general.
There will be exceptions to this rule, but it should be rare in nature as
you can run into a lot of issues otherwise to be using these active objects.

Now onto chart coding. This is one area all to itself, even within VBA.
Charts are easy to learn on the spreadsheet side, but much more complex on
the VBA side as it's spread out a lot more so than you would typically
think. I actually used the combination of the recorder and the watches to
help me learn the charting code a lot more easily, but even then, it's still
has some oddities to it. For instance, you want to line one chart directly
over the top of another chart, and you want to setup your own code for being
able to adjust the scales as the code may need to. Thirdly, you want to
have a label to the right of the charts but still within the chart area and
on top. This label is to move with the goal line as the scales are
adjusted. Well one oddity I found, setting the left, top, width and height
of the 2 charts don't necessarily place one directly over the top of the
other even though you would think that would have to happen. This can be
off by just enough to be visible when this is printed. This is what I had
to face in regards to my production charts and get them to look just how
people within the company wanted them to look for easy to read purposes.
Top chart being a line chart while the bottom chart being an area chart. On
the area chart, goal line had to stretch from the left edge to the right
edge of the plot area with it being one color above it and another color
below it. On the line chart, it had to track performances with the marks in
the middle of the columns.

Bare in mind, you not only have the chart area, but you also have the plot
area too as you will notice in the code below. Given the various oddities
and different rules that must be followed, I'm still not done setting up my
own codes for the production charts, but I have made some headway with it.
First, setup the charts by hand, and then use code to make adjustments to
those charts along the way on an as needed basis. This means it would also
be wise to name those charts for readability purposes. In this example, I
used this code to be able to line up the area chart with the line chart,
which was easier said than done as WYSIWYG doesn't apply too easily in the
case of working with charts overlaid on top of each other. I ended up using
larger border weight around the outside of the plot area on the line chart
to hide this fact when the charts prints out.

--------BEGIN---CODE--------------
Sub ChartMaintenance()
Dim lngFROWSET As Long, lngFROWRUN As Long, lngFROWPRD As Long,
lngFCHTCOL As Long
Dim lngLROWSET As Long, lngLROWRUN As Long, lngLROWPRD As Long,
lngLCHTCOL As Long
Dim dblHGTSET As Double, dblHGTRUN As Double, dblHGTPRD As Double,
dblCHTWID As Double
Dim rngTOPL As Range, rngBTMR As Range, cht As Chart, chtOBJ As
ChartObject
strSFN = "0271321_Production-2.xls"
lngFCHTCOL = 2
lngLCHTCOL = 11
lngFROWSET = 41
lngLROWSET = 55
lngFROWRUN = 58
lngLROWRUN = 72
lngFROWPRD = 75
lngLROWPRD = 89
With Workbooks(strSFN).Worksheets("Charts")
'With .ChartObject("chtSetupLine")
' .Left = 54
'End With
Set chtOBJ = .ChartObjects("chtRunArea")
With chtOBJ
Set rngTOPL =
Workbooks(strSFN).Worksheets("Charts").Cells(lngFROWRUN, lngFCHTCOL)
Set rngBTMR =
Workbooks(strSFN).Worksheets("Charts").Cells(lngLROWRUN, lngLCHTCOL)
.Top = rngTOPL.Top
.Height = rngBTMR.Top - .Top + rngBTMR.Height
.Left = rngTOPL.Left + 1
.Visible = True
.Width = rngBTMR.Left - .Left + rngBTMR.Width
Set cht = .Chart
With cht
With .ChartArea
.AutoScaleFont = False
.Fill.BackColor.SchemeColor = 70
'.Fill.BackColor.Type = 2
.Fill.Visible = msoFalse
'.Left = 4
'.Top = 4
End With
.HasDataTable = False
.HasLegend = False
'.HasPivotFields = False
.HasTitle = False
cht.PlotArea.Left =
Workbooks(strSFN).Worksheets("Charts").Cells(rngTOPL.Row + 2, rngTOPL.Column
+ 1).Left - chtOBJ.Left - cht.ChartArea.Left + cht.PlotArea.Left -
cht.PlotArea.InsideLeft - 2
cht.PlotArea.Width = cht.PlotArea.Width -
cht.PlotArea.InsideWidth + 388
cht.PlotArea.Top = rngTOPL.Offset(2, 0).Top - chtOBJ.Top -
cht.ChartArea.Top + cht.PlotArea.Top - cht.PlotArea.InsideTop - 13
cht.PlotArea.Height = cht.PlotArea.Height -
cht.PlotArea.InsideHeight + 137
End With
End With
'With .ChartObject("chtProdLine")
' .Left = 54
'End With
End With
End Sub
---------END---CODE---------------

Hope this is of help.


--

Sincerely,

Ronald R. Dodge, Jr.
Master MOUS 2000

 

[Guest]

Thanks Ronald, I will down load the code and step thru it to see how it
works. I do appricate the time you took. By the way, from what you are saying
it looks like that vba code does not recognize the custom chart types. If it
does then I am really missing something. Again Thanks.

 

[Ronald Dodge]

I don't want to falsely imply that as I haven't explored that part of it
within VBA, but just from the various issues that I have ran into on the VBA
side, I generally found it to be better to setup by hand first, then use VBA
to control after that. This is one area where I'm also having to keep
digging deeper down, as I seem to do that with a lot of things including
getting PDF Files to be read by Excel VBA (requires either standard or
professional version of Adobe on the system though for this to work), Excel
VBA interacting with ShowCase Strategy Query (expected), IBM Personal
Communicator (used to connect to the DB and do some things within the DB to
the extent users have priviledges), the other MS Office programs including
MS Project, and even to some extent, Lotus Notes for sending emails.

Anyhow, when I looked at the various custom charts, there was none that met
the combo that I needed, so I ended up having to create my own via the 2
chart process. A few of them were close, but was off by one aspect or
another aspect.

--

Sincerely,

Ronald R. Dodge, Jr.
Master MOUS 2000

 

[Peter T]

I haven't followed the whole thread but -

from what you are saying
it looks like that vba code does not recognize the custom chart types

Of course it does! As far as VBA is concerned a custom chart is one with two
or more series with two or more ChartType's. You can build your own custom
chart from scratch with VBA, or adapt an existing chart (assuming of course
it has at least two series).

Regards,
Peter T

PS had a quick look at your OP, not sure what the problem is, the code as
posted works. You could apply one of the built-in custom types with VBA or
better still do entirely with VBA

 

[Jon Peltier]

John -

Recorded macros aren't always perfect. One issue that often occurs is that
the recorded macro shows the chart type applied before the data, and in
general if you don't get the chart type you intended, you should apply it
after the chart has data. This minor variation on your procedure works fine
(note the new position of the ApplyCustomType statement):

Sub DoChart()
Charts.Add
ActiveChart.SetSourceData _
Source:=Sheets("Data").Range("B3761"), PlotBy:=xlColumns
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsObject, Name:="Data"

ActiveChart.ApplyCustomType ChartType:=xlBuiltIn, TypeName:= _
"Line - Column on 2 Axes"

With ActiveChart.Axes(xlCategory)
.HasMajorGridlines = False
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
With ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue)
.HasMajorGridlines = True
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
ActiveChart.HasLegend = True
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
Selection.Position = xlBottom
With Selection.Interior
.ColorIndex = 36
.Pattern = 1
End With
End Sub

I almost never use these built-in custom types, because if you add a series,
it may not be the type you expected, and it may change the types of existing
series. I apply one regular type to the entire chart, then apply a different
type to the particular series, and if necessary change the axes.

Sub DoChart()
Charts.Add
ActiveChart.SetSourceData _
Source:=Sheets("Data").Range("B3761"), PlotBy:=xlColumns
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsObject, Name:="Data"

ActiveChart.ChartType = xlColumnClustered
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).ChartType = xlLineMarkers
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).AxisGroup = xlSecondary

With ActiveChart.Axes(xlCategory)
.HasMajorGridlines = False
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
With ActiveChart.Axes(xlValue)
.HasMajorGridlines = True
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
ActiveChart.HasLegend = True
ActiveChart.Legend.Select
Selection.Position = xlBottom
With Selection.Interior
.ColorIndex = 36
.Pattern = 1
End With
End Sub

In general Ronald is correct about using ActiveChart or any other selected
object. This macro is pretty simple, so it's probably not worth fussing
with. However, the way to avoid dealing with an active chart is as follows.
For a more detailed discussion, see this page:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/ChartsHowTo/QuickChartVBA.html

Sub DoChart()
Dim wksht As Worksheet
Dim cht As Chart
Dim width As Double
Dim height As Double

width = ActiveWindow.UsableWidth
height = ActiveWindow.UsableHeight

Set wksht = ActiveSheet

Set cht = wksht.ChartObjects.Add(width / 4, height / 4, width / 2, height
/ 2).Chart

With cht
.SetSourceData _
Source:=wksht.Range("B3761"), PlotBy:=xlColumns

.ChartType = xlColumnClustered
With .SeriesCollection(2)
.ChartType = xlLineMarkers
.AxisGroup = xlSecondary
End With
With .Axes(xlCategory)
.HasMajorGridlines = False
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
With .Axes(xlValue)
.HasMajorGridlines = True
.HasMinorGridlines = False
End With
.HasLegend = True
With .Legend
.Position = xlBottom
With .Interior
.ColorIndex = 36
.Pattern = 1
End With
End With
End With
End Sub

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______

 

[Ronald Dodge]

Some of this stuff, while I can see Jon's point about not having to fuss
about using Active objects for small scale stuff, some of this just comes
from experience and this Active stuff was one of the first things that bit
me hard in VBA coding, which meant I had to go back and redo enough things
with the Active object codes. On the other hand, there are most definitely
exceptions to this rule.

This Active stuff was originally created by the macro recorder, which is
also to make a point, while the macro recorder does help in the learning
process, you must be able to go back and make the necessary adjustments as
needed to be able to avoid issues down the road.

In some sense, this is also true about prequalifications of objects and
variables. After many of the issues that I ran into in Access coding, I now
by default in most cases prequalify my objects/variables. I know in the
case of Excel, there may not be many places where such issues may come into
play, but I could definitely see it coming into play when dealing with Chart
coding, given the various Left, Top, Width, and Height properties.

Main thing though to be careful about, while something may start out small,
but as you get to building it up, it no longer is small, and that's when you
may be bound to run into some of these issues more often. The larger these
projects gets, the more time it takes to convert them, and that's basically
how I ended up dealing with this issue in my Production Reporting System,
which started out with a very small amount of VBA coding, but as things
progressed, that VBA code got bigger and bigger. I now by default look for
these things, that deals with good programming practices, even with the fact
that I'm a lone developer, not working on a team of developers. However,
even though others may not be looking at my code, I still need to have it
setup for readability purposes while trying to keep the code as efficient as
possible so as when I go back to the code, I only spend minimal time
reviewing to see what its purpose is and what it's doing. There's a lot of
different rules and guidelines I use as I develop stuff.

--

Sincerely,

Ronald R. Dodge, Jr.
Master MOUS 2000