Question

How do I get an Excel or PowerPoint stacked Bar Chart to not chart #N/As?
I have data like this

Date Sales Net

Jan-12 1.5 .5

Feb-12 2.6 1.5

N/A #N/A #N/A

N/A #N/A #N/A

I have the N?As in the range of the data because they may get data at some point, hence Dynamic.
I do not want to use offset, since it doesn’t work well in a chart created in Powerpoint.
There are over 125 slides and 100’s of charts, so manual changes are not good.
I am creating the charts in Powerpoint, then adding links to the data page behind the chart. Updating is fine, but after breaking all those links (I have a macro for this),
The offset named ranges will not update, since the formula needs a sheet name (like Sheet1!), but Powerpoint calls it ‘Chart in Microsoft PowerPoint’.

I hope I explained this enough.
Thanks

Answer 1

Since I can’t use offset or named ranges to good effect, I created this PPT macro to reset the data range in my data
1) any row of data that is not to be charted has an x axes value of zero and not #N/A
2) in F1 of Data sheet has to count the number of rows to chart, using countif not = 0
3) name the chart, I used StackedBar1
run macro

If someone has an easier solution, please let me know.

Sub C_SetSourceData_StackedBar()
Dim s As Slide
Dim shp As Shape

For Each s In ActivePresentation.Slides   'moves through all slides in presentation
For Each shp In s.Shapes                  'moves through each shape on slide
    If shp.Name = "StackedBar1" Then      ' stacked bar chart that needs source data updated is named this

        Set c = shp.Chart                 'set c to the chart object

        Dim data As ChartData
        Set data = c.ChartData             'sets data to the chartdata behind the chart
        data.Activate                       'need to activate the chartdat(excel sheet)

            'in cell F1 the formula =countif(A1:A50,"<>0")  this counts the rows that are not zero
        x = data.Workbook.Worksheets(1).Range("F1").Value  'gets the last row number of data not zero
        Let rng = "Sheet1!$A$1:$E$" & x                    ' creates the source range as a string

       c.SetSourceData (rng)                               ' Sets the new source data range

        data.Workbook.Close                                 ' Close the chartdata workbook
    End If
Next shp
Next s
End Sub