Bug in Excel 2008 charts

[jmmo20]

I just found out a serious bug/annoyance in Excel 2008 charts: the option to set custom error bars seems to be gone!!! If I open an excel 2004 document with custom error bars, Excel 2008 displays them OK but there''s no way to change them, since the UI element to do so is gone.

This is a picture of the error bar dialog, and the red box is where the custom error bar selector is meant to be and was in Excel 2004.

This is a serious drawback since I do need this feature. Now I have to reinstall Office 2004 just so I can use Excel 2004. :S

 

[Pittsax]

Gee, thanks Microsoft. Glad I didn't buy Office 2008 yet. What is it with Mac spreadsheets and error bars lately? They're practically the only reason I haven't totally abandoned Excel and moved to Numbers!

 

[Eraserhead]

Do standard deviation error bars work yet? As of Office 2003/2004 they never worked correctly.

 

[jmmo20]

Do standard deviation error bars work yet? As of Office 2003/2004 they never worked correctly.

I've never tried. I do my own st dev calculations and plot them independently, hence the need for "custom error bar" !!

In Excel 2007 the error bar was removed altogether from the chart option dialog window. You need to access the Chart ribbon and there click n the Error Bar icons, it's unintuitive but at least hte option is there, not like Excel 08

 

[jmmo20]

Gee, thanks Microsoft. Glad I didn't buy Office 2008 yet. What is it with Mac spreadsheets and error bars lately? They're practically the only reason I haven't totally abandoned Excel and moved to Numbers!

Glad I didn't either. I got both 2004 and 2008 versions free via my research institution. I'd be a lot angrier if I had payed for them.

 

[Doctor Q]

I'm surprised. Microsoft has never been shy about avoiding feature bloat. Why would they remove a useful feature?

 

[Eraserhead]

I've never tried. I do my own st dev calculations and plot them independently, hence the need for "custom error bar" !!

In Excel 2007 the error bar was removed altogether from the chart option dialog window. You need to access the Chart ribbon and there click n the Error Bar icons, it's unintuitive but at least hte option is there, not like Excel 08

Well Office 2007, which I have installed under Windows doesn't work yet:

 

[tufiki]

We seriously need to spam Microsoft to fix this. I am a student who has to have this function...

Come on...remove a feature? Isn't that going backwards?

 

[dops7107]

I've just discovered this too and I am gobsmacked. What the hell is Microsoft thinking? Anyone who's annoyed, make sure you use the "Feedback" option under the Help menu in Excel. I fear that using Office on a Mac is now a professional embarrassment; it even *looks* like child's play.

 

[Doctor Q]

I found another Excel bug.

I have a column containing dates. I select the entire column and set the display format to mm/dd/yy (2-digit form, with leading zeroes). Then I type 3/1/08 in an empty cell in that column but it stays 3/1/08. If I type 03/01/08 in another empty cell in that column, it changes to 3/1/08!

I select the column again, and set it to display format mm/dd/yy again, and those cells change to 03/01/08 as I want. But the next time I enter data, Excel is back to omitting/removing the leading zeroes.

 

[Hankster]

I've had similar issues with Excel where the cell does not hold the format I placed in it. I've always thought somehow I overlapped the format and the original was lost.

 

[CKtoph]

This inability to add proper error bars in Excel 2008 for Mac is absurd.

Where are the mac commercials now?

For the first time, I'm going to have to sulk over to the PC and get it working on a 3 year old version of Excel. How pitiful...