I need help and can't figure out why each time I select a new item in my slicer the chart format plot area changes back from an unsmoothed line style. My dashboard has 6 line charts that I want with smoothed line style but some of the charts maintain the smoothed line style and the others revert back to unsmoothed. Anyone know what I am doing wrong?????
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Theresa D
Hi Theresa,
If they're PivotCharts then this is a known bug i.e. PivotCharts lose formatting upon refresh (sometimes!).
That said, I don't recommend smoothed lines because often the smoothing results in a line that dips above or below the actual point and are therefore misleading.
This is more of a problem in data series that have peaks and troughs. If the trend is relatively steady this tends to be less of a problem. Anyhow, I don't recommend them.
Mynda
The only way that I have found that Excel doesn't return to the default chart settings is if you don't add to your source data. You can click the little "clear filter" icon in the top right of the slicer and format graphs to your desired look. Your chart formatting will remain the same for everything that is currently in your source data. However, when you add additional data into your source data, the "new" data is resorted back to the standard format and the "older" chart data will stay true to the desired formatting. With that being stated, the purpose of creating dynamic charts is kind of being defeated.
TJG
Hi Teddy,
I couldn't reproduce that issue. I added more dates and more legend items to my column Pivot chart and the formatting remained. I'm using Excel 2016/Office 365.
However, my go to workaround is to build a regular chart from the PivotTable as explained here: https://www.myonlinetraininghub.com/create-regular-excel-charts-from-pivottables
Mynda
