Comments on: BonaVista Microcharts: a very cool Excel charts add-in

By: Mansi Khurana

Mansi Khurana — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 04:35:01 +0000

Dear Concern,

Insert Micro Chart button not working – I tried uninstalling & reinstalling the same but stil link doesnt work. I m using Win XP Prof 2003.

Can you help me.

By: Fabrice

Fabrice — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:22:36 +0000

Just to let you not that there is a free alternative to Bonavista’s Microcharts.

—> http://sparklines-excel.blogspot.com/

I use it to follow my portfolio

The project is open-source, give it a try !

By: Ricemutt

Ricemutt — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 04:21:17 +0000

Actually, these small charts (a.k.a. sparklines) were invented by Edward Tufte, author of “The Visual Display of Quantitive Information”. He talks about them in a later book.

By: MoneyMan

MoneyMan — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 02:36:16 +0000

I don’t see any situation where this would be useful. If you have to shrink your charts down to the size of a cell, you obviously have too much information on your sheet.

Suggest you read “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” for more info on how not to confuse readers.

By: frank

frank — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:47:39 +0000

Andreas,
Thanks for the reply. Like I said, wasn’t trying to know the usefullness of the plug-in but I was a little skeptical (until I tried doing it by hand).
Was unaware of the memory problems with numerous charts. Of all the things I’ve had to do with macros, charts are the biggest pain in the a**, I must admit.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:45:10 +0000

Frank,

The problem with Excel charts is that you can not format them so that they fit into a cell. The Excel chart engine simply cuts the charts when you try it. Another problem with Excel charts is that Excel gets memory problems when you put more then 30-40 on a sheet.

Andreas Flockermann
BonaVista Systems
http://www.microcharts.net

By: Golbguru

Golbguru — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:31:45 +0000

Hey that things looks cool :) Instead of trying to insert separate charts for every trend (worse when trying to do that in Matlab) this is pretty handy summary right alongside the numbers.

By: Ricemutt

Ricemutt — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:33:42 +0000

Hey Franky,

You must be a real Excel guru to be a master at macros! :)

I honestly haven’t thought much about using regular Excel charts and shrinking them, but considering how much time it takes me to create an “acceptable” normal graph, I imagine it’d be a pain. Especially if the resolution diminishes when you shrink them.

The BonaVista website and demos use Gil Sans MT (which is what I’ve been using in my posts, including this one). I think it looks a lot cleaner and more “published” than the regular standby old Arial….

By: frank

frank — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:49:17 +0000

Oh man, formatting those hand made mini-charts do take some time. Ok, now I see the use :P
But, that’s nothing a custom macro couldn’t fix!

By: frank

frank — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:38:07 +0000

Not that I’m trying to knock the usefulness of the add-in, but I’m just curious.

By: frank

frank — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:37:17 +0000

What kind of fonts??? If you don’t mind me asking.
Also, can’t you just build a normal chart and shrink it to this size? Is that not possible in Excel?