David A. Heiser writes a very comprehensive essay titled Errors, Faults, and Fixes for Statistical Functions and Routines in Excel.

Concerning charts in Excel 2007, David writes "Building charts has completely changed, and their appearances also completely different. There is an increased ability to put in chartjunk’, lighting effects, shading, 3D renderings, flashy, distracting figures, silly variations, insertion of icons, visual distractions, etc. This is what the business world wants, the ability to insert effects to obscure, bias or just to add variety to frequent presentations."

Interesting. Something that I deal with all the time at work is the need to use 3D renderings and other worthless visual effects for presentations. When I object most people look at me like I've got two heads. Am I just wrong? Thoughts?

The following chart-related add-ins were recently updated:

• Chart Patterns Fill Add-In - AJP Excel Information
• Change Series Formula Add-In - Peltier Technical Services
• Box and Whisker Plots Add-In - Peltier Technical Services
• Waterfall Charts Add-In - Peltier Technical Services

Each of these add-ins is available as a free download via the links above.

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The Microsoft Knowledge Base is a great resource for Excel support. Below are a couple of useful links:

• Microsoft Support
• Search the Knowledge Base