The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Stock charts on excel

I'm new to Excel, as my previous post mentioned. How exactly do you do charts on Excel? Particularly stock charts, I was wondering if there add-on or lib that I can use.
Thanks

Unix2M$
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Are you looking to build a dynamic self-contained solution? Or is it feasible to get the data elsewhere and use Excel for the charting?

It's possible to do a self-contained solution, but it's more complicated than just getting the data from an online provider and throwing the data in - that's why I'm asking. :-)

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

To get the data, from the menu select Data -> Import External Data -> then select one of the options based upon whether you want the data from a database or a web query.

Then, from the menu select Insert -> Chart, then step through the chart wizard. One of the options for chart types is Stock which gives options for hi-lo-close, open-hi-lo-close, etc.

If you want to do this programmatically, just start recording a macro, import the data and insert the insert the chart, stop recording, then go into the vba editor and view the code. Typically, this will just give you insight on how to code it, but a re-write will be necessary since the cell references will be absolute. If you give each column a name (Insert -> Name -> Define), this will lessen the amount of re-write necessary.

yet another anon
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Thanks, those charts that come with Excel doesn't come close to the requirements. I was wondering how I can go about writing or creating my own charts.

Unix2M$
Thursday, May 20, 2004

Wow - what are the requirements? I know it's possible, but I'm kinda boggled by the idea that Excel charts aren't good enough.

Mind you, I'm a financial idiot. :-)

Philo

Philo
Thursday, May 20, 2004