Hans Rosling presents Statistics

October 6, 2009

I'm not the first person to note Hans Rosling's talk at TED (indeed this is from 2006) and I'm sure I won't be the last.

As a sometime public speaker I found his delivery and enthusiasm wonderful and his delivery of statistical information inspiring. Not to mention it is a pretty interesting topic as well. Be sure to go through the TED archives for his other talks.

Tell me what you think.

My how the time has flown

October 5, 2009

Clearly, this blogging thing takes a little more involvement. Today, I've been looking at blogging software, in particular Blosxom (pronounced "Blossom"). I'm going to see if I can take it for a spin.

Inspired by this post on the Clearly and Simply blog, I wrote a handout on creating Bullet Charts in Excel 2007. In general, when creating a complex chart like this; there are two approaches to take. In one method an intermediate data set is used to create data suitable for charting and you will find that this is the method used by Charles Kydd and others.

In this handout, I've taken the approach of layering charts. I found this to be easier to do in 2007 because some standard graphic tools are now available in Excel (sizing and aligning in particular).

I also take a look at working with chart templates, and while they are now easier to distribute in 2007 - not everything is roses. For example, you'll find that when you try to use your template that there is no naming function nor a decent preview. I can see this causing difficulty for those that have lots (or more than 3) of chart templates.

Tell me what you think.

September 11, 2009

A Hairball in Word 2007

Here is an ugly little hairball.

Imagine you are drawing a flowchart in PowerPoint using the graphic shapes. You then paste the completed flowchart into Word. The default format for this paste is as a Microsoft Office Graphic Object. However, none of the usual graphic ribbons appear. That's right!
The flowchart is not editable (and in the example that started me off with this quest - not printable either).
If you paste a single shape - you can edit it in Word. However, if you select or group multiple shapes. The Microsoft Office Graphic Object is the default.
And worst of all - it looks terrible. Using Paste Special gives you options for pasting in various graphic formats - but nothing maintains the shapes.

Weirdly, pasting between PPT and Excel seems to maintain the shapes as shapes. Just Word is left out in the cold.

Tell me what you think.

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Last updated: September 11, 2009

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