Feb 4
Custom Error Bars in Excel 2008: Where did they go?
Custom error bars is a feature I’ve found myself needing quite frequently this semester now that I have a physics class. Error bars are required on every chart for every lab, and custom error bars were the only way to get them right.
This wasn’t a problem in Excel 2003; that had the options I needed, but it was not Intel compatible (it ran really slow). Upgrading to office 2008 was going to be great (fast, new look, better features), but it has turned into a nightmare. I am forced to rely on remote access to my parent’s computer (with office 2007) to do my homework, and installing Excel 2004 again won’t be an option for weeks.
As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to remove custom error bars from the chart options in Excel 2008, but they are gone.
All I want to know is: Where did custom error bars go? Why are they gone? And will they ever be brought back, or will I be stuck with Excel 2004?
NOTE: This is copied from my post on the Mactopia Forums (Microsoft’s Mac site). I didn’t want to change it from its original form.
UPDATE: They’re back!
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Tags: chart options, custom error bars, excel, homework, microsoft office, office 2004, office 2008, office mac, physics class, remote access
11 Comments so far
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Did you ever resolve this? i just upgraded this morning and now can’t draw the graphs i need for my research… is there no way at all of getting custom error bars?
I’ve asked around, and the best solution for now is to use Excel 2004. I’m hoping that Microsoft releases an update soon.
Also, there has been some discussion on this topic here: http://www.officeformac.com/?13@@.ee8bef5/7
[mac]EXCEL2008 for Mac???????????????????????????…
?????????????????????????????????????MicroSoft???????????????????????????????????????????…
[...] do a good job with this release. It also sounds like they’re getting lots of user feedback from people angry that this feature isn’t in there ready to go out of the box. But honestly. WTF? [...]
Soooooo unstoked about this. Now have to do my graphs on a different computer. Excel is fully USELESS to me now!!
Grrrr.
Holly:
That has been the frustration of many people. From what I hear, the Mac Office team is working on a fix for this so that they can include it in an update. If you check out the link I posted in an earlier comment, there is some feedback form a couple of memebers of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft.
With any luck, by the time fall semester rolls around, it’ll be fixed.
[...] it’s true! The custom error bar setting has returned to Microsoft Office Mac 2008! Quickly, go download [...]
This error bar issue is indeed a shame for Office Excel.
Just download Open Office, a free alternative:
http://www.openoffice.org/
You type in your data for the graph and click on the colored pied in the tab. Look for the option to set your error bar. Easy as pie!
I am having trouble setting different error bars for my data. It wants to make the same error bar for the data in that “series” even though for each time point the errors are different.
I have three genotypes of mice and have data on them from three separate time points. Each genotype for each day has a different SEM that I need to plot. When I try to do this, the excel gives the same error bar for the same genotype for all three time points and I can’t figure out how to do each bar one at a time.
HELP!!!
Yes, you could use Open Office, but the only reason to is that it is free. Besides, Open Office does not have error bars in the x-direction (it has been a requested feature since 2001). The current issue report is here: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=42946.
And don’t forget to look at the post I made here: http://greg.medding.net/blog/2008/05/15/the-error-bars-came-back/.
As you can see, Microsoft only took 4 months to respond to user requests. That is a lot faster than 7 years.
Shay: If you are using Office 2008 for Mac OS X, make sure you have installed the latest updates. Then open excel and go to help. Then search for “error bar”.