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Chart Pattern Fills in Excel 2007

17th November 2007, 12:06 pm by John Walkenbach

I've heard several people complain about the fact that the chart pattern fills are not available in Excel 2007. This feature can be useful if you print charts on a non-color printer. Although charts created with previous versions of Excel continue to display the pattern fills, there is no way to apply patterns fills using the Excel 2007 UI.

Microsoft's Eric Patterson addressed this problem by creating an add-in. You can download it here: Chart Pattern Fills.

This add-in creates a new group (Patterns) on the Chart Tools / Format tab. The group has one control that, when clicked, shows the available patterns to apply to the selected chart element.

Category: Add-ins, Excel12  |  Comment (RSS)  |  Trackback

4 Comments

  1. Andy Pope:

    I have a similar add-in which allows you to specify the foreground and background colours of the pattern fills.
    http://www.andypope.info/charts/patternfills.htm

    And it will work on shapes as well as charts.

    18 November 2007, 6:19 am

  2. John Walkenbach:

    Much better, Andy. I need to start checking your site more often.

    18 November 2007, 6:01 pm

  3. Jim Holstein:

    I consult for the nation’s largest insurance company [they don’t permit their name to be mentioned] and they don’t allow ADD-INS. Does Microsoft’s Eric Patterson intend to eventually enable this pattern feature in the base product? Thanks.

    19 November 2007, 9:59 am

  4. Jon Peltier:

    Jim -

    “… and they don’t allow ADD-INS.”

    I dislike this draconian, self-defeating policy by IT departments. Is it possible to open an add-in as a regular file in this company? Then you could still use the add-in, without installing it. Which is the only way you’ll be able to use the patterns, because I don’t expect to see it again as a regular user interface option.

    19 November 2007, 4:55 pm

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