I am trying to graph some data. The easiest way to show you what I'm trying to do is to show you the spreadsheet, have a look at the picture on my home node.

To make life easier, I created a template spreadsheet, which I open and insert the data into. (Although I would prefer not to use a template, and create the entire spreadsheet on the fly.) The problem occurs when the data range does not match the range in the template. Say I designed the graph to cope with 31 days worth of data, and the user only wants to plot 7 days worth of data. What happens is that the 1st 6 days of data occupy the same area as the fisrt 6 days of 31 days worth of data.

So, I started a macro, and changed the data range of the chart to match the data, and it cured the problem. However, when I tried to convert the macro so I could do this from perl, it didn't work.

The macro looked like this:

Sub Macro1()
    Sheets("Graph").Select
    ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 1").Activate
    ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Select
    ActiveChart.SetSourceData Source:=Sheets("Data").Range("A1:C49"), 
+PlotBy:= _
        xlColumns
End Sub
[download]

use strict;
use warnings;
use Win32::OLE qw(in with);
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Excel';
use Win32::OLE::Variant;
use Win32::OLE::NLS qw(:LOCALE :DATE);
$Win32::OLE::Warn = 0;

my $template = "D:/My Scripts/test_chart.xls";
my $outexcel = "D:/My Scripts/test_chart1.xls";

my $excel;
eval {$excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Excel.Application')};
die "WARNING! Excel not installed" if $@;
unless (defined $excel) {
    $excel = Win32::OLE->new('Excel.Application', sub {$_[0]->Quit;}) 
+or die "ERROR, cannot start Excel";
}

$excel -> {Visible} = 1;
$excel->{DisplayAlerts} = 0;

die "Cannot find template $template\n" unless (-e $template);

my $workbook = $excel -> Workbooks -> Open($template);

my $range = "A1:C49";
my $sheet = $workbook -> Worksheets("Graph");
$sheet -> Activate();

my $chart = $sheet -> ChartObjects("Chart 1");
$chart -> Activate();
my $collection = $chart -> SeriesCollection(1); 
$collection -> Select(); # Can't call method "Select" on an undefined 
+value
$chart->SetSourceData({Source => "$sheet", Range => "$range", PlotBy =
+> "xlColumns"});
# $chart -> delete(); #This will work!

# save the spreadsheet
$workbook->SaveAs($outexcel);
undef $workbook;
undef $excel;
exit();
[download]

On sheet1, called "Chart" is a chart of this data. I have put a picture of these sheets on my home node.

That is expected that the series collection would cause a problem. If you have no current series in the graph you have to add one before you can do anythin with it, as I did in my code above. I would also reccomend generating your template on the fly (oxymoronic I know!)and not relying on a file already present.

---

Grygonos

Thanks for the help, guys. I have finally sussed it!

I recorded this macro while creating the chart:

    Range("C1:C721").Select
    Charts.Add
    ActiveChart.ChartType = xlLine
    ActiveChart.SetSourceData Source:=Sheets("Data").Range("A1:C721"),
+ PlotBy:= _
        xlColumns
    ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).XValues = "=Data!R2C1:R721C2"
    ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsNewSheet
    ActiveChart.HasLegend = False
    ActiveChart.HasDataTable = False
    ActiveChart.Axes(xlCategory).Select
    With Selection.Border
        .Weight = xlHairline
        .LineStyle = xlAutomatic
    End With
    With Selection
        .MajorTickMark = xlNone
        .MinorTickMark = xlNone
        .TickLabelPosition = xlNextToAxis
    End With
    Selection.TickLabels.AutoScaleFont = True
    With Selection.TickLabels.Font
        .Name = "Arial"
        .FontStyle = "Regular"
        .Size = 8
        .Strikethrough = False
        .Superscript = False
        .Subscript = False
        .OutlineFont = False
        .Shadow = False
        .Underline = xlUnderlineStyleNone
        .ColorIndex = xlAutomatic
        .Background = xlAutomatic
    End With
    Selection.TickLabels.AutoScaleFont = True
    With Selection.TickLabels.Font
        .Name = "Arial"
        .FontStyle = "Regular"
        .Size = 5
        .Strikethrough = False
        .Superscript = False
        .Subscript = False
        .OutlineFont = False
        .Shadow = False
        .Underline = xlUnderlineStyleNone
        .ColorIndex = xlAutomatic
        .Background = xlAutomatic
    End With
[download]

And it converted to this code:

$sheet->Range("C1:C721")->Select;
my $chart = $workbook->Charts->Add;
$chart->{Name} = "Chart";
$chart->{ChartType} = xlLine;
$chart->SeriesCollection(1)->{XValues} = "=Data!R2C1:R721C2";
$chart->Location(xlLocationAsNewSheet);
$chart = $excel->ActiveChart;
$chart->{HasLegend} = "False;
$chart->Axes(xlCategory)->{MajorTickMark} = xlNone;
$chart->Axes(xlCategory)->{TickLabels}{Font}{Size} = 5;
[download]

See my home node for a picture of the chart and data, if you like. Ooh! and if anyone's looking for a meaty project, how about a script to automatically convert an Excel macro into perl? That's be nice! ;-)