Why do drawings deform when printed?

[Guest]

When I draw a perfectly round circle in a worksheet (Heigth and Width are the
same in format menu) it becomes flattend when I print it (or watch it in
Preview window).
I would like to get a circle (or any other shape) that has "exactly" the
size I specify in the format object menu.
Any suggestions.

Thanks,
JB

 

[Guest]

My first guess would be that XL is not meant to be a graphics program, and
MSFT bolted on various graphics capabilitites as a selling point, rather than
as an integral part of its design. Ergo, you get behavior that you would not
get from, say, Photoshop or a CAD program.

Dave

 

[Guest]

This is as close as I know of in terms of a printing issue changing graphics...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/838910/en-us

 

[Guest]

The only way I know to do that in Excel is to experiment with intentionally
mis-shappened or mis-sized objects until you get the printed output you want.

I tried to assist someone with such an issue in Excel dealing with the sizes
of drawn objects, specifically rectangles. They would show as being one size
in the worksheet but would print at a different size, and not even retain
proper proportions. This was the first time my attention had been called to
such a problem. It turned out that the amount of variation in
size/proportion was even printer dependent; i.e. same Excel file on one
computer sending to 2 or more printers ended up with 2 or more variations in
size disparity.

Research and discussion of the problem with Excel MVPs revealed it to be a
problem that's been around through many versions of Excel, at least back to
'97.

Since the work being done by the person I was assisting had to do with
things that at least needed to display the proportions between several drawn
objects fairly accurately, he elected to do all of his drawings in an
application more suited to those efforts. I believe in this case he had
Visio available and elected to use it.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for you reply.
I think I have to skip my ambition to make a more or less technical drawing
in Excel. However I am amazed that in Word the same functionality for drawing
is used, but in this case it printed correct (eg. when printing CD labels).
It seems that MS used different coding for Word and Excel. Maybe I have to
link my Excel calculations to an Word drawing.

Regards,

JB