No promises!: Excel, why hast thou betrayed me?

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Excel, why hast thou betrayed me?

I can do amazing things with Excel. I can make numbers dance, I can make bad numbers look good, and I can make charts and graphs out the wahzoo. I'm pretty sure you could use it to solve world hunger, or even charter peace in the Middle East, but my ADD prevents such drastic steps. Today, however, I'm stymied. All I want to do is make a chart. Something I've done many, MANY times with much success. Today, however...not so much.

I highlighted the 4 fields I want to include in the chart. I click on the pretty little chart button. For some reason, it assumes that the first two fields (in the same row as the 2nd two fields) are not included in the data, are are supposed to be the series name. Wha? No, put those numbers down there with the others-I didn't TELL you to do that! I can not figure out why it keeps putting those numbers in the wrong place-I've never had this problem before! If I go to the previous month's numbers (in the same row, directly adjacent to these four offensive fields) it works properly. If I go to the NEXT month's numbers, it gets all screwed up again.

I feel betrayed! Hurt! Confused! If Excel isn't the pliable numerical whipping post I've always known it to be, what ELSE am I wrong about? I'm going to go curl up in the fetal position and whimper until someone can help me figure this out.

posted by Jen @ 9:08 AM

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