Plot empty cells doesn't work

[michael_packer]

I have charts on sheets in Excel with only partial data; e.g., category axis for months of the year but data only for March-August. I don't want the plotted line/area to rise from zero when the data begins and fall back to zero when the data ends. So I click on Tools Options Chart and select Plot empty cells as "not plotted (leave gaps)". But nothing changes on my chart, both for line graphs and area graphs. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
Michael Packer
michael_packer@ml.com

[Andrew Cronnolly]

Michael,

You need to make sure that the cells are indeed empty. Select the cells and then choose Edit, Clear, All. That might help.

Andrew C

[michael_packer]

I've found the trick to handle this for line charts (see groups.google.com and search on "plot empty cell"): use the NA() function to make the cell appear empty to MSChart even though it has a formula in it. But how do you do that for an area chart? I understand from Microsoft KB that there's a bug in the suppression of plotting in area charts, but they suggest using interpolation on an area chart, which doesn't work at the beginning or end of the series of actual data. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Michael