Comments on: Dynamic Ranges in Charts

By: sam

sam — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:03:00 +0000

Normally, to make dynamic ranges you should use Index/Counta
=$A$1:Index($A:$A,Counta($A:$A))

By: Dick Kusleika

Dick Kusleika — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:35:00 +0000

Awesome Tushar. Thanks for that.

By: Rob van Gelder

Rob van Gelder — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:32:00 +0000

Jon: you’re right, of course. I actually meant 2002 (which I run at work). I run 2003 and 2007 at home.

By: Doug Glancy

Doug Glancy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:53:00 +0000

The thing I don’t like about lists is that if I unlock the input cells (leaving the formula cells locked) and protect the sheet, I lose the list functionality of being able to add rows. At least I haven’t been able to find any way. Does anybody have a way to deal with this?

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:14:00 +0000

Rob -

You don't need to suffer Excel 2007 for easier dynamic ranges. Excel 2003 introduced Lists, the grandpappy of 2007's Tables.

In fact, Lists in 2003 was the single feature that convinced me to upgrade myself from Office 2000 to Office 2003, bypassing 2002 entirely.

By: Tushar Mehta

Tushar Mehta — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:38:00 +0000

Dick: Irrespective of how one computes the dynamic range, base only the 1st range on the calculated range. For subsequent ranges, use =OFFSET(FirstRange,0,{n}) This way, if there is a change (correction / enhancement) in the computation of the dynamic range, subsequent names will update automatically.

For an example, see Dynamic Range (http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/newsgroups/dynamic_charts/index.html). The first example shows how the x range is based on the y range. The second illustrates the other way around.

By: Rob van Gelder

Rob van Gelder — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:49:00 +0000

The way I set up my input tables in 2003 is as follows:

Assumptions:
- Column headers on row 1
- Content every row after row 1
- Column 1 is the identifier column, and is non-blank.

ref_RowCount =COUNTA(Sheet1!$A:$A) - 1
ref_Identifier =OFFSET(Sheet1!$A$1, 1, 0, ref_RowCount)
ref_SecondColumn =OFFSET(Sheet1!$B$1, 1, 0, ref_RowCount)
ref_ThirdColumn =OFFSET(Sheet1!$C$1, 1, 0, ref_RowCount)
...

It allows rows to be deleted, columns to be re-ordered.
Of course, this all gets a lot easier by using 2007 Tables.