think cell manual

think-cell 5.1User Guide

Imprint

think-cell Software GmbH US Office [email protected]ße 8/E 845 Third Avenue, 6th Floor http://www.think-cell.com10115 Berlin New York, NY 10022Germany United States of America

Tel.: +49 30 666473-10 Tel.: +1 800 891 8091 (toll-free)Fax: +49 30 666473-19 Fax: +1 212 504 3039

January 5, 2010

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilmor in other ways, and storage on data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under theprovisions of German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must alwaysbe obtained from think-cell Software GmbH. Violations are liable for prosecution act under German Copyright Law.

©2002–2010 think-cell Software GmbH

think-cell is a registered trademark. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in thispublication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevantprotective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.think-cell.com

Contents

Imprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1. Product overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2. Installation and update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

First installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Automatic update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Trouble shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Online quality assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Temporarily disabling think-cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3. Introduction to think-cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Inserting a new chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Adding and removing labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Entering chart data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Styling the chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

4. Basic concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Toolbar and Elements menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Contents 4

Rotating and flipping charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Resizing smart-elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Selecting charts and features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Formatting and style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

5. Data entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Internal data sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Absolute and relative values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Transposing the data sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Reverse order in data sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

6. Text labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Types of labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Automatic label placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Manual label placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Text fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Text label property controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Pasting text into multiple labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

7. Column, line and area charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Column and stacked column chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Clustered chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

100% chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Line chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Area chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Combination chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Scales and axes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Contents 5

Arrows and values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Legend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

8. Waterfall chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

9. Marimekko chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Marimekko chart with %-axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Marimekko chart with units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Ridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

10. Pie chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

11. Scatter and bubble charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Scatter chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Bubble chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Trendline and partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

12. Project timeline (Gantt chart) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Calendar scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Rows (Activities) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Timeline items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Date format control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Language dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Date format codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

13. Excel data links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Creating a chart from Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Contents 6

Transposing linked data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Updating a linked chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Data Links dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Maintaining data links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

How to compile the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Frequently asked questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

14. More tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Special characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Save and send selected slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Changing the language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Changing fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Automatic case code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

think-cell round . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

A. Deployment guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Workstation prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Initial installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Starting PowerPoint with think-cell enabled or disabled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Online quality assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

B. Exchanging files with PowerPoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Loading files from think-cell in PowerPoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Reimporting smart-elements from PowerPoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Contents 7

C. Programming think-cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

PresentationFromTemplate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

D. Keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

1. Product overview

Welcome to think-cell 5.1! This software is an add-infor Microsoft PowerPoint that is specifically designed tomake the creation of business charts as fast as scribblingon paper. Charts created with think-cell intelligently ar-range themselves to look just right. All the chart decora-tions – connectors, arrows, and alike – are just a mouseclick away and are automatically placed precisely wherethey belong. The look of all drawings is optimized to ful-fill the requirements of a clean and professional slidedesign.

2. Installation and update

This chapter guides you through the installation of yourpersonal copy of think-cell. If you are about to preparethe deployment of think-cell in a larger organization,you should skip this chapter and read the ‘Deploymentguide’ on page 88.

System requirementsTo install and run think-cell, the following software mustbe installed:

– Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7

– Microsoft Office 2000, XP, 2003 or 2007 with at leastPowerPoint and Excel installed

The installation of think-cell requires about 20MB ofdisk space.

First installationInstalling think-cell

Please close all instances of Microsoft PowerPoint andMicrosoft Excel before installing think-cell.

The installation can be started directly from the onlinesource. When you download the setup file you may

– choose Open in order to install the software directlyfrom the internet.

– or choose Save to Disk and start the installation bydouble-clicking the downloaded setup file.

The installation wizard asks for the installation path, thencopies the required files and updates the registry. Thedefault installation path is:

C:∖Program Files∖think-cell

If the installation wizard detects that you do not have suf-ficient privileges for a regular installation, a single-userinstallation will be performed. This means that think-cellcan only be used with your current Windows login name.The default installation path for a single-user installationis:

C:∖Documents and Settings∖[user]∖ ↣Local Settings∖Application Data∖think-cell

or, for Windows Vista and 7:

C:∖Users∖[user]∖AppData∖Local∖think-cell

Installation and update 10

Missing system components

When you start PowerPoint for the first time after in-stalling think-cell, the software checks for the availabilityof all required system components. On most computers,the required components are already installed.

If think-cell detects that a required system component ismissing, a dialog box opens with either a link to Micro-soft’s download web page for the respective componentor an explanation how to install the missing componentusing Microsoft Office Setup. You need to restart Power-Point for the installation to take effect.

Components required by think-cell are:

– Visual Basic for Applications component. In Micro-soft Office Setup, choose Add or Remove Features andselect it under Office Shared Features.

– Microsoft Graph. In Microsoft Office Setup, chooseAdd or Remove Features, then under Office Tools, selectGraph.

– Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) 3.0. This is includedin Windows XP or later and in Internet Explorer 6.0 orlater.

– Microsoft Background Intelligent Transfer Ser-vice (BITS) Client Component. This is included inWindows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later.

Macro security warnings

The think-cell add-in requires the file tcaddin.dll to beloaded by PowerPoint and Excel. Depending on the se-curity settings of your computer, you may be promptedwith the following security warning when starting one ofthese products after installing think-cell.

You can examine the file’s certificate by clicking onDetails. Make sure the certificate belongs to think-cellSoftware GmbH, Berlin, Germany. We recommend thatyou check the box Always trust macros from this sourceand then click Enable Macros.

– If you do not check Always trust macros from this source,the security dialog will continue to show up wheneveryou start PowerPoint or Excel.

– If the security on your computer is set to High, you mustcheck the box before you can click Enable Macros.

– If you choose Disable Macros, you will not be able touse think-cell. To enable macros, close PowerPointor Excel and open it again; you will then again beprompted with the security dialog.

Entering the license key

The public version of think-cell requires a valid licensekey, which expires after a fixed period of time. When youstart PowerPoint with a think-cell trial version for the firsttime, or when your license key has expired, you need toenter a valid license key.


Please contact us to receive such a license key for the firsttime or as a prolongation of your existing deployment.In any case, you can always click the Cancel button andcontinue using PowerPoint without think-cell. To enter thelicense key later, click the Activate think-cell buttonin the think-cell toolbar or ribbon group.

Automatic update

think-cell regularly checks online to see if a new releaseis available, and if so, attempts to download the updatedinstallation file. The automatic download is subject tothe following conditions:

– The check for a new release is performed once whenPowerPoint is started with think-cell installed and en-abled.

– The automatic download runs quietly in the back-ground and only occupies unused bandwidth. If theinternet connection is interrupted or there is other net-work traffic, the download is paused until the networkis again available.

– While PowerPoint is in on-screen presentation mode,any automatic update activities are suppressed.

A dialog box appears after the download is completed,indicating that a new release of think-cell is available

for installation. You have the option to either immedi-ately Install the update, or click Later to postpone theinstallation until the next start of PowerPoint.

Security note: All files that are executed and installed bythe automatic update are digitally signed by think-cell.The signature is checked for validity before any codeis executed or installed. For additional security, the au-tomatic download uses an SSL-encrypted connection.If you have further questions on security issues, pleasecontact your local administrator.

Trouble shooting

For latest information on known issues andworkarounds, please refer to our website at:

http://www.think-cell.com/kb

If you cannot find a solution in the knowledge baseor this manual, feel free to contact our support team.Open the More menu in the think-cell tool bar and clickon Request Support... Choose from the opening windowwhether you would like to attach certain slides to an e-mail to think-cell’s support team. This is often useful topoint up a problem. After confirming with OK your e-mail application will open with an e-mail template.

http://www.think-cell.com/kb


Online quality assuranceAt think-cell we are committed to stability and robustnessas key factors for the professional use of our software. Ifdesired by your firm’s IT department, think-cell offers au-tomatic error reporting. When an error condition ariseswhile you are using think-cell, the software automati-cally generates a report that helps us to understand theproblem and fix it in the next release. The error reportonly contains information about the internal state of oursoftware. No user data is included in the error report.

The software sends the error report encrypted. You mightnotice a short delay while an error report is being sent,but in most cases you can continue using think-cell asusual.

If automatic error reporting is disabled for your firm’sversion of think-cell, it can be temporarily enabled un-til the end of the current PowerPoint session by typingsenderrorshome into any textbox within PowerPoint.Our support staff may ask you to do so if some problemcannot be reproduced in our laboratory. A message boxconfirms that automatic error reporting is now enabled.

For more information on think-cell’s automated error re-porting, refer to section ‘Online quality assurance’ onpage 94.

Temporarily disabling think-cellTo quickly work around compatibility problems, or otherissues arising from the use of think-cell, you have the op-tion to temporarily disable think-cell without uninstallingthe software.

In the More menu in the think-cell toolbar in PowerPoint,there is an option called Deactivate think-cell. When youselect this option, think-cell will be disabled immediately.With think-cell disabled, charts are presented as nor-mal PowerPoint shapes. To re-enable think-cell, click the

Activate think-cell button in the think-cell toolbar orribbon group in PowerPoint. There is no need to closethe PowerPoint application in order to switch betweenthink-cell and plain PowerPoint.

Before you alter smart-elements without think-cell,be aware of potential compatibility issues (chapter‘Exchanging files with PowerPoint’ on page 97).

Note: You do not need to disable think-cell in orderto make your presentations accessible to coworkers orclients who may not have think-cell installed. Simplysend them the same file you are working with – if think-cell is not installed, they will find a presentation with nor-mal PowerPoint shapes.

3. Introduction to think-cell

In this chapter, a step-by-step tutorial will show you howto create a chart from a scribble like this:

A more elaborate presentation of the basic concepts ofthink-cell and details on the various chart types can befound in chapter ‘Basic concepts’ on page 19 and thefollowing chapters.

Inserting a new chart

With think-cell installed, you will find the following tool-bar in PowerPoint:

Introduction to think-cell 14

In PowerPoint 2007 the toolbars have been replaced bythe Ribbon. The think-cell group can be found in theInsert tab.

Note: In the following, we will use the term think-celltoolbar to refer to the think-cell toolbar in Office 2000,XP and 2003 and the think-cell ribbon group in Of-fice 2007.

The think-cell toolbar offers a number of drawing ob-jects with extended functionality and built-in intelligence.These objects are called smart-elements, as opposed toordinary PowerPoint objects (sometimes also referred toas AutoShapes).

Inserting a smart-element into your presentation is verysimilar to inserting a PowerPoint shape. To create a newsmart-element on a slide, go to the think-cell toolbarand click the Elements button in PowerPoint 2007 or thethink-cell button in earlier versions of PowerPoint. Then,select the required chart type.

Note: In the following, we will use the term Elements but-ton to refer to the button Elements in PowerPoint 2007,the button Charts in Excel 2007 and the button think-cellin Office 2000, XP and 2003.

You may notice small arrow markers around some ofthe chart types. Moving the mouse over these markerslets you select rotated and flipped versions of these charttypes.

In our example, we want to insert a column chart, whichis represented by this button:

If you unintendedly have selected some smart-element,you can always

– press the�

�

�

�Esc key to cancel the insert operation, or

– re-click the Elements button to select a different smart-element.

Once you have chosen a smart-element, a rectangle willappear with the mouse cursor, indicating where the ele-ment will be inserted on the slide. You have two optionswhen placing the smart-element on the slide:

– Click the left mouse button once to place the elementwith the default width and height.

– Hold down the left mouse button and drag themouse to create a custom-sized element. Somesmart-elements have a fixed width for insertion; in


this case, you can only alter the height. You canalways change the size of the smart-element later.

When you are inserting or resizing a smart-element, youwill notice that it “snaps” to certain locations.

The snapping behavior serves the following purposes:

– With snapping, objects can be quickly and easilyaligned. The highlighting of a vertical or horizontalline indicates that the smart-element you are mov-ing is currently aligned with some other object on theslide.

– When resizing a smart-element, it snaps to its pre-ferred size. In the case of a column chart, its preferredwidth depends on the number of columns. If you havemanually changed the size of the chart, you can easily

change it back to the default width: It will snap whenyou come close enough.

As in PowerPoint, you can hold down the�

�

�

�Alt key to move

the mouse freely without snapping.

The smart-element is automatically selected after inser-tion, as indicated by a blue highlighted outline. If thesmart-element you want to modify is not selected, youcan select it by clicking on it. Although the highlight-ing of selected smart-elements looks different, selectingsmart-elements works the same way as selecting ordi-nary PowerPoint shapes.

Adding and removing labels

After inserting a new column chart, both category la-bels and series labels are shown automatically. Thereare several ways to remove and add labels. The easi-est way to remove a single label is to select it and pressthe

�

�

�

�Delete key. The easiest way to remove all labels of a

particular type is to select the respective button from thechart’s context menu.

To remove the series label like in our example col-umn chart, click Remove Series Label in the smart-element’s context menu. To access the context menu ofa smart-element, move the mouse to a point within thesmart-element’s rectangle where there are no other ob-jects and click the right mouse button. Read more aboutediting text labels in chapter ‘Text labels’ on page 29.


Entering chart data

When you select the column chart, a data sheet buttonis displayed in the bottom right corner of the chart.

Click the data sheet button, or simply double-click thechart, to open the data sheet. The data sheet opens au-tomatically after insertion of a new chart. Now, enter thedata from our example column chart into the data sheet.Type in only the actual numbers. Do not round numbersor calculate totals: think-cell will do this for you. For mostchart types, you can simply input the numbers the wayyou see them in the scribble, from left to right and fromtop to bottom. The tab key

�

�

�

�⇆ can be used, just as in

Microsoft Excel, to conveniently move to the next col-umn in a row, and the enter key

�

�

�

�

↱can be used to jumpto the first column of the next row.

The data sheet for our example column chart looks likethis:

Note that the chart on the slide instantly updates to re-flect the changes in the data sheet. It even grows andshrinks depending on the area of the data sheet that youuse. Years are automatically inserted as category labelsin the first row of the data sheet. The sequence of yearsis automatically continued when you start entering datain the following column.

Having entered the data, our example chart looks likethis:

As you can see, think-cell has already performed a gooddeal of work to make the chart look “right”. In particular,it automatically placed all labels and added column to-tals. The next section explains the last few steps to finishour example chart.


Styling the chart

Every smart-element consists of a number of features. Inour example, text labels and column segments are themost important features of the column chart. Each kindof feature has a number of specific properties that youcan change in order to give it a different look. To changea feature’s properties, you have to select it first. You canalso select multiple features at a time to change theirproperties together.

Selecting features is very similar to selecting files in theWindows Explorer:

– Select a single element by clicking on it with the leftmouse button.

– Or select multiple elements by holding down the�

�

�

�Ctrl

key while clicking.

– You can also select a contiguous range of featuresby holding down the

�

�

�

�Shift ⇑ key, moving the mouse

pointer and then clicking with the mouse. Watch howthe affected features highlight while you move themouse with the

�

�

�

�Shift ⇑ key held down.

Note: In general, you cannot move or resize features.Features are part of the smart-element and are auto-matically placed in accordance to the smart-element’splacement. If there are for once multiple possible place-ments for a feature, you can drag the feature to specifyits location.

The following screenshot shows how all column seg-ments of the second data series highlight in orange whilethey are collectively selected in a

�

�

�

�Shift ⇑-click operation:

When you select features, a floating toolbar containingthe corresponding property controls will appear. For theselection of column segments as illustrated above, forexample the Fill Color control becomes available in thetoolbar:

In our example, we want to change the shading ofthe second data series, as required by the scribble onpage 13. Therefore, after selecting the column segmentsof the series, we choose Accent 2 shading:

Note that the labels automatically turn white to makethem easier to read on the dark background.


Finally, the numbers in our example chart are still dis-played with incorrect precision. According to the scrib-ble, they should be rendered with one decimal placeprecision. To apply this setting to all numbers of the en-tire chart, we simply have select the entire smart-elementrather than the individual features, and the floating tool-bar changes to include the Number Format control:

By typing the decimal place into the number format box,you can specify the desired display format for all num-bers in the chart. Alternatively you can click on the ar-row and select the desired format from the drop downbox. Note that the actual numbers you type or select donot matter, they only act as an example of the requiredformatting (read more in section ‘Number format’ onpage 32).

The scribble on page 13 is now represented by a clear,professional looking chart. As you become familiar withusing think-cell, you will be able to create a chart likethis in less than one minute.

4. Basic concepts

This chapter presents the basic concepts of working withthink-cell. They apply to all chart types. For a quick tourrefer to chapter ‘Introduction to think-cell’ on page 13.

Toolbar and Elements menu

After installing think-cell you will find the following tool-bar in Office 2003 (or below):

In the Office 2007 ribbons the think-cell group can befound in the Insert tab.

As you see both menus are similar. Only the placementdiffers. In the following, we will refer to both menu stylesby the term think-cell toolbar. Using the think-cell toolbaryou can call most of think-cell’s functions.

The four symbols in the Basic menu represent basicshapes which can be used in your presentation as de-scribed in ‘Checkbox and Harvey ball’ on page 64.

The chart objects can be found by clicking on Elements.We call them smart-elements due to their enhancedfunctionality. When you move your mouse pointer overone of the small arrows beside the symbols, you maynotice them turning. That way the smart-element canbe turned in the desired direction. By clicking on them,smart elements can be inserted like normal PowerPointshapes.

The following smart-elements are available:

Basic concepts 20

Icon Known as Page

column or bar chart 35

100% column or bar chart 36

clustered column or bar chart 35

build-up waterfall chart 49

build-down waterfall chart 49

marimekko or olympic chart with units 52

marimekko or olympic chart with %-axis 52

area chart 38

area chart with %-axis 38

line chart 36

combination chart 38

pie chart 54

scatter chart 56

bubble chart 57

project timeline or Gantt chart 59

Furthermore there are universal connectors to con-nect the smart-elements (see ‘Universal connectors’ onpage 47 for more information).

And finally More offers additional valuable tools (see‘More tools’ on page 80) to facilitate your daily workwith PowerPoint.

Rotating and flipping charts

The small arrow markers around the stacked, clustered,100%, line, area, waterfall and marimekko chart sym-bols in the Elements menu let you insert flipped (and –if applicable – rotated) versions of these charts. Mostcharts can also be rotated after insertion using a rota-tion handle. Simply select the chart and drag the rotationhandle to the desired position: Click with the left mousebutton on the rotation handle and, while holding thebutton down, drag the cursor to one of the four possiblered-highlighted positions and release the button.

Note: If you want to flip the content of the rows(or columns) you have to use the Flip Rows (or

Flip Columns) button in the internal data sheet (see‘Reverse order in data sheet’ on page 28).

Resizing smart-elements

When a smart-element is selected, resize handles areshown at the corners and in the center of the bound-ary lines. To resize a smart-element, drag one of thesehandles.

You can also set two or more smart-elements to thesame width or height. This also works if you include

Basic concepts 21

PowerPoint shapes in your selection. First, select allobjects that you want to set to the same width or height(see ‘Multi-selection’ on the next page). Then, choose

Same Height or Same Width from the contextmenu of a smart-element included in the selection. Allobjects will be resized to the same height or width,respectively.

The height or width of all elements is set to the largestheight or width among the individual elements.

Selecting charts and featuresthink-cell’s smart-elements (charts) not only consist ofthe segments corresponding to the values in the datasheet. They also contain labels, axes, difference arrows,connectors and so forth. These elements and the datasegments are called features and they form the parts ofsmart-elements.

You can distinguish a feature by the orange frame thatappears when the mouse pointer is over it. When youclick it, the frame turns blue to mark it as the currentlyselected feature. Additionally a floating toolbar appears.It contains a set of property controls you can use to givethe feature a different look. It is a good idea to explorea newly-inserted chart to get an overview of the featuresit is made of and their properties.

When you right-click on a feature, its context menu ap-pears. You use it to add additional features to the chartor remove those currently visible.

Buttons whose functions are unavailable for the currentselection are greyed out. The context-menu of the en-tire smart-element is invoked by right-clicking the back-ground of the chart.

Features always belong to their respective smart-elementand can itself have further features. As an example, thevertical axis of a line chart is a feature of the chart itself,while the tickmarks along the axis are features of theaxis. Consequently you use the chart’s context menu toswitch on or off the vertical axis and the axis’ contextmenu to toggle whether tickmarks are shown.

There are several ways to remove a feature:

– Left-click the feature to select it and press the�

�

�

�Delete or

�

�

�

�↢ key on your keyboard.

– Right-click the feature to open the think-cell contextmenu. Click the Delete button to remove the fea-ture from the smart-element.

– Open the think-cell context menu that you used to addthe feature. Click the same button again to remove it.

Basic concepts 22

You cannot remove data segments from the chart in thisway. All data segments shown are controlled by the in-ternal data sheet. If you delete a cell of the internal datasheet, the corresponding data segment is removed fromthe chart.

Note: Buttons which toggle the presence of a feature,e.g. if series labels are shown in a chart or not, changetheir state accordingly. For example, after you have cho-sen Add Series Label to add series labels to the chart,

the button changes to Remove Series Label. In the fol-lowing, generally only the state of the button for addingthe feature is shown.

Detailed information on all the available features is pro-vided in the following chapters accompanying the re-spective chart types they apply to.

Multi-selection

You can quickly select a range of features that belong to-gether – this is called logical multi-selection. It works thesame way as with files in Microsoft Windows Explorer:Select the first feature in the desired range with a singleleft mouse button click, then hold down

�

�

�

�Shift ⇑ and click

the last feature in the range. When you move the mousewhile holding down

�

�

�

�Shift ⇑ , the range of features that is

going to be selected is highlighted in orange.

To add single features to the selection, or to removesingle features from the selection, hold down

�

�

�

�Ctrl while

clicking. Again, this is the same way multi-selecting filesworks in Microsoft Windows Explorer.

Logical multi-selection is particularly useful if you want tocolorize an entire data series, or if you want to changethe formatting of a range of labels. You can even use

multi-selection to paste text into multiple labels at once(see ‘Pasting text into multiple labels’ on page 33).

Keyboard navigation

In many cases, you do not need the mouse to move theselection around on a slide. Instead, you can hold downthe

�

�

�

�Alt key and use the cursor arrow keys

�

�

�

�←

�

�

�

�→

�

�

�

�↑

�

�

�

�↓ to

move the selection.

– When the active selection refers to a PowerPoint shapeor smart-element,

�

�

�

�Alt with cursor keys moves the se-

lection to the next shape that is found in the arrow’sdirection.

– When the active selection refers to a chart’s feature,�

�

�

�Alt with cursor keys moves the selection to the nextfeature of the same kind in the chart.

However, you can only shift the focus to features of thesame chart. Use the mouse again to select a feature ofanother chart.

Panning

When editing a slide in a zoomed view (like 400%) itis often hard to move the slide around and locate theregion that you are working on. With think-cell installed,you can use the middle mouse button to “pan” the slide:Just grab the slide with your mouse pointer by clickingthe middle mouse button and move it where you needit.

If your mouse has a wheel instead of a middle button,you can achieve the same effect by pressing down thewheel without turning it.

Note: You probably know that in PowerPoint you canzoom in and out using the mouse wheel with the

�

�

�

�Ctrl

Basic concepts 23

key held down. Together with the panning feature fromthink-cell, using zoomed views for slide design becomeseasy and fast.

Formatting and style

Whenever you select a smart-element or feature by click-ing on it a floating toolbar appears. It contains propertycontrols to change the look of the feature. Only the con-trols which are applicable to the selected feature areshown in the floating toolbar.

In this chapter several general types of controls are de-scribed. Through the course of the following chaptersdetailed information is provided for all property controlsof the floating toolbar in the context of specific chart andfeature types.

Color and fill

The color control applies to features thathave a fill color and to lines in linecharts. It does not apply to text, becausethe text color and the text backgroundcolor are always set automatically.

The list contains Like Excel Cell if youhave enabled Use Excel Fill in the colorscheme control (see ‘Color scheme’ on the currentpage). To reset the fill color of a segment you coloredmanually choose Like Excel Cell to use Excel’s cellformatting.

If you need other colors than offered by the color control,select the Custom option from the dropdown box. Youwill then be presented with a color picker where you canchoose any color you like:

Note: If you want to apply a color other than black orwhite, make sure that the slider for the brightness (onthe very right of the dialog) is not set to minimum ormaximum. When you move the slider up or down, youcan watch how the color changes in the colored field onthe bottom of the dialog.

think-cell adds the most recently used custom colors tothe color control for quick access. You will find a dividerline in the list of most recently used colors: The colorsabove the divider are saved within the presentation, soyou can rest assured that your colleagues have themavailable when editing the presentation. The colors be-low the divider are available on your computer only, be-cause you were using them in a different presentation.Both sections can hold up to 8 colors. When you use a9th custom color, the first one is removed from the list.

You should use the color property only to highlight a sin-gle shape or segment. If you need to colorize an entirechart, use the color scheme property instead.

Color scheme

The color scheme control ap-plies consistent coloring to allsegments of a chart. The col-oring is automatically updated

Basic concepts 24

when a series is added or removed. For these reasons,the color scheme property should be preferred overthe color property to create chart shading. See section‘Changing default colors and fonts’ on the followingpage for more information.

When you check Use Excel Fill think-cell applies the colorfrom Excel’s cell formatting to the chart in PowerPoint.This is particularly convenient if you want to control thechart colors through your Excel data source in the caseof a linked chart. For instance the Conditional Formattingcan help you to color positive values green and negativevalues red.

If you have enabled Use Excel fill and the cell corre-sponding to a data segment does not have a fill color setas part of Excel’s cell formatting, then the appropriatecolor from the color scheme currently used is applied,i. e. the Excel fill color is applied

”on top“ of the color

scheme.

Note: Using Excel’s cell formatting to set a segment’sfill color does not work if you use conditional formattingrules in Excel and these rules contain references to othercells.

Line style

The line style control applies to the outlinesof segments of column, bar and pie charts,lines in line charts, and to value lines (see‘Value line’ on page 46). You can alsochange a connector’s appearance usingthe line style control. In addition, the out-line of the plot-area in all charts can be specified usingthe line style control.

Outline colors

You can change the color of an outlinewith this control. It works for segments ofcolumn, bar and pie charts.

Line scheme

The line scheme control specifies the ap-pearance of lines in line charts. The sup-ported line schemes apply consistent linestyles and coloring to all lines in the chart.

Marker shape

The marker shape control can be used toadd or change markers for data pointsin line and scatter charts. Note that themarker scheme control should be used in-stead of marker shapes to add consistentmarkers to all the data points in a line orscatter chart.

Marker scheme

The marker scheme control applies con-sistent markers to data points in scatteror line charts. The markers are automat-ically updated when data points, groupsand series are added or removed. The marker schemecontrol should be preferred over the marker shape con-trol when adding consistent markers to an entire line orscatter chart.

Basic concepts 25

Changing default colors and fonts

think-cell can use PowerPoint’s scheme colors for manychart elements (e.g. axes, text, arrows, etc.). These col-ors as well as font definitions are always taken fromthe default colors and fonts of your presentation file. Ifthe defaults are designed correctly, think-cell will followseamlessly when you choose to switch the color scheme.

To adjust the default color settings, simply change yourpresentation’s color scheme:

In PowerPoint 2003

1. In the toolbar, go to Format→ Slide Design...

2. In the task pane, click on the header of the taskpane and switch to Slide Design - Color Schemes.

3. On the bottom of the task pane, click onEdit Color Schemes....

4. Adjust the colors to match your corporate design.

In PowerPoint 2007

1. In the ribbon, go to Design.

2. In the group Themes, click on Colors.

3. From the drop-down list choose Create New ThemeColors...

4. Adjust the colors to match your corporate design.

To adjust the default font settings, simply change yourpresentation’s slide master:

In PowerPoint 2003

1. In the toolbar, go to View → Master thenSlide Master.

2. Adjust the fonts of the master text styles to matchyour corporate design.

In PowerPoint 2007

1. In the ribbon, go to View.

2. In the group Presentation Views, click on Slide Master.

3. Adjust the fonts of the master subtitle style to matchyour corporate design.

In general, it is advisable to store these defaults in aPowerPoint template file (*.pot) and to derive all newpresentations from this template file. Please refer to thePowerPoint help for information how to do this.

5. Data entry

Internal data sheet

Every chart created with think-cell has an associateddata sheet, except for the Gantt Chart, that offers acalender instead. The data sheet is opened by double-clicking the chart or by clicking the button that ap-pears when the chart is selected. The data sheet alsoopens immediately when a new chart is inserted.

think-cell uses a customized Microsoft Excel sheet fordata input, which you can use in the same way as reg-ular Excel. You can use all the same shortcut keys, youcan enter formulas instead of numbers, and so forth. Butof course you can also use an Excel file as a data source(see ‘Excel data links’ on page 70).

To insert or delete a row (or column) you can use therespective buttons in the toolbar of the data sheet. Thestandard buttons for undo and redo and cut, copy andpaste are available as well.

Absolute and relative values

The think-cell data sheet alternatively supports entry ofabsolute or relative values. The distinction between thetwo types of data is made by the Excel cell formatting.

You can always toggle the interpretation of a column’sdata with the button.

Keep in mind that for the display in the chart, it doesnot matter if you enter percentages or absolute values.If you enter absolute values but want to label the chartwith percentages (or vice versa), think-cell performs thenecessary conversion (see ‘Label content’ on page 33).A simple data sheet with only absolute values looks likethis:

For simple charts based on absolute values only, the“100%” row on top of the chart data can be left empty.If you choose to label the chart with percentages, thepercentages are calculated from the absolute values,

Data entry 27

assuming the sum of each column to be “100%”. Youcan enter explicit values in the “100%” row to overridethis assumption. The following data sheet calculates per-centages based on 100% being equal to a value of 50:

Alternatively, you can fill in the data sheet with percent-ages. Again, you can choose to label the chart withabsolute or relative values. In order to have think-cellcalculate absolute values from the percentages you en-tered, you should fill in the absolute values that represent100% in the “100%” row. The following data sheet usespercentages to specify the same data values:

The default behavior of the data sheet depends on thechart type: 100%-charts and area or marimekko charts

with %-axis as well as pie charts default to percentages,all other charts default to absolute values.

Transposing the data sheet

The layout of a think-cell data sheet depends on thechart type. In bar charts, for example, columns containthe data for a single series, while in column charts, rowscontain the data for a single series. Here is a typical datasheet for a column chart:

The size of a think-cell data sheet is limited to a max-imum of 256 columns and 65536 rows. If the datafor your chart requires more than 256 columns, youcan use the Transpose Sheet button to transpose thedata sheet, swapping the row and column data togetherwith any category/series interpretation. Here is the trans-posed version of the previous column chart data sheet:

Data entry 28

Transposing the data sheet lets you create charts wherethe data sheet would normally require more than 256columns, and can often be used to simplify data entrywhen working with a large amount of data.

Note: The limitation of the number of rows and columsis due to the same limitation of Excel data sheets in gen-eral in Excel 2000–2003. For compatibility reasons thelimitation also applies when using Office 2007.

Reverse order in data sheet

In think-cell, the visual order of data in the data sheetalways corresponds to the order of the data in the chart.This is also true for flipped charts (see ‘Rotating and flip-ping charts’ on page 20). If you want to flip the datain the data sheet, you can use the Flip Rows (or

Flip Columns) button in the data sheet’s toolbar.

Note: This feature is particularly convenient to convertdata from former MS Graph charts, because in MSGraph data is entered in headfirst order.

Note: If you have Microsoft’s Chinese Conversion fea-ture installed, you will find the options Simplified Chineseand Traditional Chinese in the data sheet’s More menu.

6. Text labels

think-cell takes care of correct and readable labeling.Avoid using PowerPoint text boxes to label your chartsas they will be ignored by think-cell’s automatic labelplacement. When you create labels from think-cell’scontext menu, the default content is taken from the datasheet or calculated by the program (in the case of col-umn totals, averages, and alike).

In addition, you can always enter additional text or re-place the default text inside think-cell’s automatic labels.When a label is selected, you can start typing, overwrit-ing the current text. If you want to keep the existing text,enter text editing mode by pressing

�

�

�

�F2 and use the cur-

sor keys and�

�

�

�Home/

�

�

�

�End keys to navigate within the label

text. This section explains how think-cell’s labels work indetail.

Types of labels

Here is a list of labels that are supported for differenttypes of charts, and the buttons in the context menu toadd or remove them:

Label type Chart types Menu buttons

Category column1/line/area

Series column/line/area

Segment column

Point line/area

Total column/area

Inside pie

Outside pie

Activity Gantt

Item Gantt

Scale Gantt

1 including stacked chart, clustered chart, 100% chart,marimekko chart, waterfall chart, and their rotated varia-tions

Text labels 30

Automatic label placement

When using think-cell, labels are automatically placedat their appropriate positions. A number of built-in rulesensures that labels are always placed for easy readabilityand pleasant aesthetics. These rules are specific to thechart type and to the type of the label in question. Hereare some examples.

For segment labels in column charts,

– if there is enough space, place all labels centered,

– if a label is larger than the segment it belongs to, puta colored rectangle underneath the label,

– if two labels are too close together, offset one to theleft and the other to the right,

– if there is not enough space inside a segment, placethe label outside the segment and add a line thatpoints to the related segment.

For inside labels in pie charts,

– if there is enough space, place them as close to thesegment’s outside border as possible.

– if a label is larger than the segment it belongs to, puta colored rectangle underneath the label.

– if two labels are too close together, offset one of themtowards the center of the pie.

Manual label placement

In general, think-cell automatically places all labels atappropriate positions. If a label can be placed at mul-tiple positions, you can manually change think-cell’splacement decision:

1. Select the label. If a drag icon appears at the lowerright corner of the selection then this indicates thatthere are alternative locations for the label.

2. Drag the selection frame or the drag icon with themouse. While you are dragging, available locationshighlight, and the blue selection frame jumps tothese locations.

3. Drop the label at the desired location.

Labels that do not show the drag icon when selected, donot offer alternative locations.

When manually placing a series label, alternative loca-tions for the label will include any existing legend (‘Leg-end’ on page 48) for the chart.

Text labels 31

Once you have manually placed a label at a specific po-sition, think-cell will respect your decision and maintainthe label’s position even when the chart layout changes.

If you want a manually placed segment label to be putback into automatic mode, drag the mouse pointer ontothe target Drag here for Automatic or select the but-ton from the label’s context menu.

Note: You can also drag multiple labels at the sametime. To do so, use multi-selection (‘Multi-selection’ onpage 22) and move one of the selected labels as a rep-resentative.

Text fieldsYou can add arbitrary text to all labels that are createdwith think-cell. The numbers in the labels are updatedwhenever the data sheet changes, even when the labelcontains extra text. This is particularly convenient for an-notations or footnote marks. To use this feature, simplytype into the text box as usual.

When you move the cursor or select text, you will no-tice that the numbers from the data sheet behave like asingle character. This concept is called a text field. Youcan either overwrite the text field or add text before orafter it, but you cannot change it. Any numbers that arebased on the data sheet and are displayed in chart la-bels, are created as text fields. Each text field refers to acertain number created from the Excel data. This couldbe a single cell in the data sheet or a calculation involv-ing multiple cells. Whenever the data source of the textfield is changed, the numbers in the label are updatedto reflect the change.

As long as you do not delete or overwrite a label’s textfield, the numbers in the text box are kept consistentwith the numbers in the data sheet. You may, however,choose to delete the field and replace it with some othertext or numbers. In this case, the text in the label will nolonger be updated.

It is not obvious when a numeric text field has been over-written with some other number. To inform you that thelabel is no longer automatically updated, an exclama-tion mark pops up next to the label. The exclamationmark also pops up next to category or series labels if youentered text in the data sheet but then replaced the textfield with custom text. Note that the exclamation mark ispurely informative and that overwriting text fields is oftenperfectly legitimate.

Text labels 32

To reset a label and (re-)insert text fields, use the la-bel content control (‘Label content’ on the next page) orsimply click on the exclamation mark, if there is one.

Note: Automatic text fields can contain up to 57 char-acters. Any additional text will be truncated. For non-numeric text fields, e. g., series labels, we suggest thatyou simply replace the text field with the desired text di-rectly in the PowerPoint textbox. Having the text in Power-Point rather than in the data sheet makes it easy to addline breaks for optimal text flow.

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Text label property controlsFont

The font control applies to all text labels (chapter ‘Textlabels’ on page 29). Click on a font to change the settingof the selected features. When you change the font forthe smart-element, all text that is later created within thesame smart-element adopts the new font.

Number format

The number format control applies to textfields that display chart data. To use the

number format control, enter an example number withthe desired format. The actual number you enter is notimportant, it is only the number format that matters. Thedropdown box provides quick access to the most com-mon formats. Also, up to four of your most recently usedcustom formats are available in the dropdown box. Ab-solute and relative values can have different format.

You can use the following punctuation characters for thegrouping of thousands: comma, point, single prime andspace. For the decimal point, you can use point, commaor momayyez. However, you cannot use the same char-acter for the grouping of thousands and the decimalpoint.

For example,

– type 1.000,00 to display numbers with a comma forthe decimal point, with two decimal places, and thou-sands separated by points.

– type 1000 to display integer numbers with no group-ing.

– you can add arbitrary prefixes and suffixes, with orwithout spacing: $12.345 Mio

– If you want all numbers to be signed, just enter a lead-ing or trailing plus: +1,234

– type −USD 1,234 to place the algebraic sign in frontof the currency, type EUR −1.234 to place it in frontof the value.

– type (1,234) to display bracketed negative values.– type –1,234 with a leading en dash to replace allminuses with en dashes.

think-cell can also use a number format that has beenset in Excel. To use this, first choose the desired num-

Text labels 33

ber format in Excel using the Format Cells... dialog andthen select Excel Format from the bottom of think-cell’snumber format control.

In the context of currency, some people use single primeas a symbol for million and double prime as a symbolfor billion. If you want to use this convention with think-cell, start with entering millions into the data sheet oruse the magnitude control to show the values in unitsof millions (see ‘Magnitude’ on the current page). Then,enter the appropriate format string into the number for-mat control. If you do not use the single prime in theformat string, the numbers followed by a double primealways represent billions – even if there are no morenumbers following the double prime.

Consider the number 3842.23 (or the number3842230000 combined with a magnitude setting of×106).Number format control Output

1"234'000 3”842’2301"234'0 3”842’21"00 3”841" 4”

Magnitude

Values from data sources often have magni-tudes that are not appropriate for data presen-tation. In think-cell, you can solve this problemby altering the magnitude of the labels withoutchanging the data source.

Here is a simple example: Your Excel table is filled withseven-digit values (e.g. 3,600,000.00) but you wouldprefer to show values in units of millions. Simply select

×106 from the floating toolbar and the labels will showthe appropriately scaled values.

Label content

Most labels have a label content control. Usethe control to choose text fields with which tofill the label. For example, the segment labelsin the column chart can show absolute valuesand/or percentages. (For details about filling in the datasheet refer to ‘Absolute and relative values’ on page 26.)

Some labels only have one entry in this dropdown box.You can use it to restore the label’s text field if it wasdeleted.

Pasting text into multiple labels

With think-cell, creating data driven charts is quick andeasy, but you still have to type the text. If you alreadyhave it available in some table or text file, think-cell canhelp you there, too.

The text may be in a file in Microsoft Excel or MicrosoftWord or in any other kind of text file. In Excel, labels arenaturally separated into table cells. In plain text files,labels should be organized in columns (separated byline breaks) or in rows (separated by tab characters).

Pasting multi-selections is not only possible with chartlabels but can also be used with any native PowerPointshape.

1. In your source file, select the text for all the labelsor shapes and copy them to the clipboard (

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Text labels 34

2. Switch to PowerPoint. If the objects that are going toreceive the text are not yet there, create them now.These objects can be native PowerPoint shapes aswell as think-cell labels.

3. Multi-select the shapes or labels that you want to fillwith text. For more tips on multi-selection, refer to‘Multi-selection’ on page 22.

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If the text from the source is properly separated byline breaks and/or tab characters, each of the selectedshapes or labels in PowerPoint receives the correspond-ing text from the clipboard.

7. Column, line and area charts

Column and stacked column chartToolbar icon:

In think-cell, we do not distinguish between simple col-umn charts and stacked column charts. If you want tocreate a simple column chart, enter only one series (row)of data in the data sheet. For a quick tour of the columnchart, refer to the example in chapter ‘Introduction tothink-cell’ on page 13.

Bar charts in think-cell are simply rotated column charts,and can be used exactly as column charts. In addi-tion, you can create butterfly charts by placing two barcharts “back-to-back”. To do so, apply the functions ro-tation (see ‘Rotating and flipping charts’ on page 20)

and same scale (see ‘Same scale’ on page 42). Thenremove the category labels for one of the charts.

For the steps to create a stacked clustered chart, see‘Clustered chart’ on the current page.

Clustered chartToolbar icon:

Column, line and area charts 36

The clustered chart is a variant of the stacked columnchart, with the segments arranged side-by-side. If youwant to arrange stacks of segments side by side, youcan create a stacked clustered chart.

To create a stacked clustered chart, follow these steps:

1. Insert a stacked chart.

2. Click onto the baseline between the columns, dragthe gap arrow to the left and set the gap width to“0”.

3. Click onto the baseline where you want to insert afull category gap and drag the gap arrow to theright until the tooltip shows “1 Category Gap”; thishas to be repeated for all clusters.

If there is an even number of stacks in a cluster, the labelcannot be centered to the whole cluster. Use a Power-Point text box as a label in this case.

100% chart

Toolbar icon:

The 100% chart is a variation of a stacked column chartwith all columns typically adding up to the same height

(i. e., 100%). The labels of the 100% chart support thelabel content property, which lets you choose if you wantto display absolute values, percentages, or both (‘Labelcontent’ on page 33).

With think-cell, you can create 100% charts withcolumns that do not necessarily add up to 100%. If acolumn totals to more or less than 100%, it is renderedaccordingly. For details about filling in the data sheetrefer to ‘Absolute and relative values’ on page 26.

Line chart

Toolbar icon:

The line chart uses lines to connect data points belong-ing to the same series. The appearance of the line chartis controlled by the line scheme, marker scheme, line


style and marker shape controls in the floating toolbar.See ‘Formatting and style’ on page 23 for details onthese controls. Labels for the data points are not shownby default but may be displayed using the line chartAdd Point Label context menu button .

If the category values of a line chart are strictly increas-ing numbers or dates then the x-axis will automaticallyswitch to a value axis (see ‘Value axis’ on page 39).When dates are used the date format can be changed bymulti-selecting all category labels (see ‘Multi-selection’on page 22) and typing a date format into the control(see ‘Date format codes’ on page 69).

Note: The horizontal axis can only switch from categoryto value mode, if

– all category cells in the data sheet contain numbersand Excel’s cell format is also set toGeneral orNumberor all category cells in the data sheet contain datesand Excel’s cell format is also set to Date,

– the numbers or dates in the category cells are strictlyincreasing from left to right,

– and the y-axis is not set to Crosses Between Categories(see ‘Positioning the value axis’ on page 39).

The line chart can also display a second vertical valueaxis. Please refer to ‘Secondary Axis’ on page 42 forfurther information.

Smoothed lines

If you prefer a smoother appearance of the lines in aline chart, you can turn on this setting. First right-clickon the desired line, then use the Set to Smooth Line

button.

Error bars

Error bars can be used to indicate deviations. By meansof the error bars the following chart can be created.

1. Create a line chart with three series. The first seriesreflects the upper deviation, the second series re-flects the mean and the third series reflects the lowerdeviation.

2. Right-click the center line and choose Add Error Barsfrom the context menu.

3. Remove the series labels for the upper and lowerseries.

Select one of the error bars to change the marker shapeand color for the upper and lower deviation and the linetype of the bar for all error bars. You can also select anindividual error bar marker to change the properties forthis marker only.

A handle appears at each end when you select an errorbar. You can drag these handles to select which lines theerror bars should span. You can also visualize intervalsinstead of the deviation around a central value if you setthe error bar to only span two adjacent lines.


Interpolation

In line, area and area 100% charts, the Interpolate

button can be used to display a chart with linear inter-polation used for any missing data values in a series. Inline charts, interpolation can be enabled and disabledfor individual series in a chart. In area charts, it can onlybe applied to the whole chart, because the series stackon each other.

Area chart

Area chart

Toolbar icon:

An area chart can be thought of as a stacked line chart,with the data points representing the sum of the val-ues in the categories rather than the individual values.The appearance of area charts is set using the colorscheme control. Labels for the data points are not shownby default but may be displayed using the area chart

Add Point Label context menu button. The area chart

Add Total context menu button can be used to dis-play total labels. Linear interpolation can be enabledusing the Interpolate button (see ‘Interpolation’ onthis page).

Area 100% chart

Toolbar icon:

The area 100% chart is a variant of the area chart withthe sum of all the values in a category typically repre-senting 100%. If the values in a category total more orless than 100%, then the chart will be rendered accord-ingly. See ‘Absolute and relative values’ on page 26 formore details about specifying data values. The labels ofthe area 100% chart can display absolute values, per-centages, or both (‘Label content’ on page 33). Linearinterpolation can be enabled using the Interpolate

button (see ‘Interpolation’ on the current page).

Combination chartToolbar icon:


A combination chart combines line and column seg-ments in a single chart. ‘Line chart’ on page 36 and‘Column and stacked column chart’ on page 35 de-scribe in detail the usage of lines and column segmentsin charts.

To convert a line to a series of segments, simply high-light the line and select the Set to Segment Type but-ton from the context menu. To convert segments to aline, simply highlight a segment of the series and selectthe Set to Line Type button from the context menu.The data sources of line charts, stacked charts and com-bination charts have the same format.

This function can be used in stacked and clustered col-umn charts as well as in line charts.

Scales and axes

Value axis

In menu: Chart

Menu item:

Use this feature to display a value y-axis.

Note: The x-axis of a marimekko chart is also a valueaxis. Similarly, scatter and bubble charts have two valueaxes that are always displayed. In addition, the x-axis ofa line chart may be a value axis, rather than a categoryaxis (see ‘Line chart’ on page 36). The x-axes of all othercharts are standard category axes.

Adjusting the scale of a value axis. When selected, avalue axis has three handles:

– Value axes are usually scaled by think-cell. You can,however, manually scale a value axis by dragging thehandles at the end of the value axis. Automatic valueaxis scaling can be restored by dragging the handlesuntil the tooltip indicates Automatic. Holding down

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– The tickmark spacing for value axes is usually calcu-lated by think-cell. You can, however, manually ad-just the tickmark spacing by dragging the middle han-dle. As you drag, the handle will jump to supportedtickmark spacings, with a tooltip indicating the se-lected spacing. Releasing the handle will apply theindicated tickmark spacing to the axis. Automatic tick-mark spacing can be restored by reducing the tick-mark spacing until the tooltip indicates Automatic.

– The Set Same Scale button can be used to applythe same scale to multiple charts. See ‘Same scale’on page 42 for further details.

Positioning the value axis. A value y-axis can be movedby selecting and dragging the axis with the mouse. Whiledragging, available alternative locations for the axis will


be highlighted. Dragging to the desired location andreleasing will move the axis.

You will notice, when selecting and dragging the valuey-axis of a line chart, that two locations on either sideof the chart are highlighted. Dragging to either of thelocations will position the y-axis on the appropriate sideof the chart.

The location selected, however, also sets the crossingbehavior for the chart. Two distinct styles of crossing be-havior are supported for line charts:

– Crosses At Categories

The y-axis crosses the x-axis at the center of a cate-gory. In this case the data points of the first categoryare placed directly on the y-axis.

– Crosses Between Categories

The y-axis crosses the x-axis between two categories.Consequently, the data points are offset from the bor-der of the chart.

Regardless of the crossing behavior of the axis, the x-position of data points always corresponds to the centerof the category.

Selecting either of the innermost highlighted locationswill set the behavior to Crosses At Categories, while se-

lecting either of the outermost highlighted locations willset the behavior to Crosses Between Categories.

The and buttons in the value axis context menucan also be used to alter the crossing behavior.

Value axis context menu. Value axes have their owncontext menu. It shows the following buttons:

Add Tick Marks: Add or remove tickmarks.

Add Tick Labels: Add or remove tickmark labels.

Add Grid Lines: Add or remove gridlines.

Add Title: Add or remove axis title. You can drag thetitle to choose its placement.

Fit Scale To Data: Revert the scale and tickmark spac-ing to automatic sizing if they have been modifiedeither by the user or by a same scale operation (see‘Same scale’ on page 42).

Add Break: Add a break at the current mouse pointerposition (see ‘Value axis break’ on the current page).

Set Crosses At/Between Categories: Alter thecrossing behavior for a line chart.

Value axis break

In menu: Segment, axis, line, area

Menu item:

Use a value axis break to shrink a particularly large seg-ment and enhance readability for the smaller segments.To add a value axis break, click the part of the seg-ment or axis where you want the break to go and openthe context menu. When adding a value axis break, the


exact position where you right-click a segment or axismakes a difference.

Any break you insert applies to the value axis (if shown)and to all segments sharing the same range of the axis.For this reason, you can not add a break to the axisat any position where there is a segment border in anyof the chart’s columns. A break can only be added ifat the mouse pointer location there is some part of thevalue axis big enough to display at least the two linesthat visualize the break.

This is illustrated by the following example. No breakcan be added to the very top part of the second col-umn, because the top of the third column is too close.However, within the range of the third column’s seg-ment, there is enough space for the break. Since bothcolumns share this range of the value axis, both seg-ments are broken:

Note: If you apply the same scale operation (see ‘Samescale’ on the following page) to charts that have valueaxis breaks, the breaks are automatically removed. Aslong as breaks are present, it is impossible to make theselected charts visually comparable.

Adjusting the break’s extent. You can adjust the sizeof a broken segment by dragging the lines that appearwhen you select the break. These lines mark the rangeof the scale that is compressed to save space. Drag thelines to determine the size of the compressed part of thescale. If you drag a line far enough for the compressedrange of the scale to take as much space as was orig-inally required, the break disappears. The default is tocompress the selected part of the scale as much as pos-sible while leaving enough room for the break lines tobe rendered.

Available break styles. There are two types of breakshapes supported by think-cell. The straight break as il-lustrated above is commonly used for standard columncharts. The wiggle break as illustrated below is con-venient to save space in charts with wide or adjacent


columns. If enough space is available, you can tog-gle between the two shapes with the button in thebreak’s context menu.

Note: In line and area charts only the wiggle style issupported.

Same scale

When there are multiple similar charts on the same slide,it is often desirable that all of them share the same scale.Only when two charts share the same scale, are thephysical sizes of their bars or columns comparable.

The following example shows two charts which have thesame size, but not the same scale. Note that the col-umn that represents 7 units in the waterfall chart is thesame height as the column that represents 47 units inthe column chart.

To make columns from different charts visually com-parable, select all those charts together. Then, openthe think-cell context menu of one of them and clickthe Set Same Scale button to resize smaller scales tomatch the largest one. In the above example the result-ing charts look like this:

When the data represented by a chart changes, it is pos-sible that this chart rescales. If you still want to keep thesame scale for multiple charts, you may have to reap-ply the same scale operation. The same applies if youmanually changed the scale of one of the charts.

To revert the same scale, select one or multiple chartsand click the Fit Scale to Data button. If you are notsure which charts share the same scales, the easiest wayis to revert the same scale for all charts, then to selectthe requested charts and to activate same scale.

Note: If you apply the same scale operation to chartsthat have value axis breaks, the breaks are automaticallyremoved (see ‘Value axis break’ on page 40). As long asbreaks are present, it is impossible to make the selectedcharts visually comparable.

Secondary Axis

Charts containing lines may have an additional, sec-ondary y-axis. You can add a secondary y-axis, and as-


sociate a line with this axis, by highlighting a line and se-lecting the Set to Right/Left Axis button from the linecontext menu. If a chart has two y-axes, then you canuse the same Set to Right/Left Axis button to alter they-axis association of individual lines in the chart. A sec-ondary axis is a fully-fledged value axis (‘Value axis’ onpage 39) and may be scaled independently.

Category gap

The basic spacing between columns in a chart is speci-fied by the gap width. Extra spacing between individualpairs of columns may be added by inserting a categorygap.

The gap width for all columns can be altered by click-ing on the baseline and dragging the handle a smalldistance. The handle snaps to the default gap width.In order to achieve a consistent appearance for chartsthroughout your presentation, the default gap widthshould be used when possible.

Category gaps can be introduced by dragging the samehandle further to the right until the category gap tooltipappears. The handle snaps to multiples of the columnwidth.

Altering the gap width or introducing category gaps bysimply dragging preserves the width of the columns, re-sulting in an increase or decrease of the overall chartwidth.

You can ensure that the overall chart width is preservedby holding down the

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widths will be increased or decreased to accommodatethe altered gaps.

Note: In some cases, a break in the baseline (see ‘Cat-egory axis break’ on the next page) may be a space-saving alternative to a category gap.


Category axis break

In menu: Category axis column gap

Menu item:

A category axis break indicates a break in the continuityof the category axis scale. To insert the break, right-clickon the category axis between two columns and selectthe respective menu item.

Arrows and values

Difference arrows

In menu: Chart, segment1, point2

Menu items:

Difference arrows can be used in charts to visualizethe difference between pairs of segments, points orcolumns. The difference is automatically calculatedand updated whenever the underlying data changes.The text label for the difference (chapter ‘Text labels’on page 29) supports font, number format and label1 column and waterfall charts2 line and area charts

content properties (‘Font’ on page 32, ‘Number format’on page 32, ‘Label content’ on page 33).

You can cycle through three arrow modes. The button inthe context menu changes accordingly and the numberin the label is recalculated:

Show an arrow pointing in one direction andcalculate the relative difference.Show a double-ended arrow and calculate theabsolute difference.Show an arrow pointing in the other directionand calculate the relative difference.

Two distinct styles of difference arrows are supported bythink-cell: segment (or point) difference arrows and cat-egory difference arrows. Segment difference arrows aredesigned to show differences between pairs of segmentsor points in a chart; category difference arrows are de-signed to show differences between column totals.

By default, a newly inserted difference arrow stretchesfrom the selected segment or category to the top of nextcategory. You can also determine the desired start andend segment/category for the difference arrow imme-diately: Select a segment in the start category and asegment in the end category. Then right-click on oneof them and select Add Difference Arrow. To selectmultiple segments at a time, hold down

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selecting (see ‘Multi-selection’ on page 22). In case ofa line or area chart, select the corresponding data pointsinstead of segments.

Segment difference arrow. Segment difference arrowscan be added by selecting the or button inthe context menu. You can use the handles that appearwhen the difference arrow is selected to set the two val-ues that are to be compared. The ends of the difference


arrow can be attached to column segments, data pointsor to a value line, if there is one (‘Value line’ on the nextpage).

If the arrow is so small that the bubble would cover it up,the bubble is automatically placed next to the arrow. Tomanually optimize the layout, you can drag the arrowitself as well as its label to other locations (‘Automaticlabel placement’ on page 30). If you want to place thearrow between two columns, you might want to createan additional gap between the columns (‘Category gap’on page 43).

Category difference arrow. Category difference arrowscan be added by selecting the or button in thecontext menu and connecting the ends of the differencearrow to the categories or columns that are to be com-pared.

CAGR arrow

In menus: Chart, segment

Menu item:

This feature visualizes the compound annual growth rate.The range of years on which the calculation is based istaken from the data sheet cells that are associated withcategory labels. The CAGR is automatically calculatedand updated whenever the underlying data changes. Forthe calculation to work correctly, it is important that therespective data sheet cells contain the correct year num-bers.

The automatic display of the CAGR is based on a textlabel (chapter ‘Text labels’ on page 29) and supportsfont and number format properties (‘Font’ on page 32,‘Number format’ on page 32).


By default, only one CAGR is inserted that stretches fromthe selected category to the last category in the chart.You can use the handles that show up when the CAGRarrow is selected to specify its start and end categories.

You can also determine the desired start and endcategories for the CAGR immediately: Select a seg-ment in the start category and a segment in the endcategory. Then right-click on one of them and select

Add Compound Growth Arrow. If you select segmentsin more than two categories, you will get a CAGR foreach pair of successive selected categories. To selectmultiple segments at a time, hold down

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selecting (see ‘Multi-selection’ on page 22). In caseof a line or area chart, select the corresponding datapoints instead of segments.

Series CAGR

The CAGR arrow is always calculated based on the col-umn totals. However, you might also like to visualize thecompound annual growth rate of one of the series.

This can be shown in series labels. Sim-ply select the label and choose the CAGRoption from the right-most menu on thefloating toolbar.

Now the CAGR is calculated series-wise.

To select all series labels in one action, click the firstlabel, then

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Value lineIn menu: Chart

Menu item:

This feature displays a line parallel to the x-axis to visu-alize a certain value. You can create multiple value linesper chart, and you can choose to have the line’s labelplaced to the left or to the right of the chart.

Where appropriate, the value line is initialized with andsnaps to the arithmetic mean (stacked chart, clustered


chart) or the weighted mean (marimekko chart) of thecolumn totals. If the line is snapped to such a value,this value is calculated and automatically updated whendata changes.

You can drag the line as desired. If you need to increasethe precision of the dragging operation, use PowerPointcontrols to zoom in on the slide. You can also use thecursor keys

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value. When using the cursor keys, the line moves inincrements corresponding to the label’s number format.

As always, you can add custom text to the label or re-place the predefined label with your own content. Youcan learn more about labels and text fields in chapter‘Text labels’ on page 29. You can also change the la-bel’s font (see ‘Font’ on page 32) and number format(see ‘Number format’ on page 32).

100% indicator

In menu: Chart

Menu item:

This feature shows a “100%” mark. It is on by default.You can choose to have the label placed to the left orto the right of the chart.

Series connectorsIn menus: Chart, segment

Menu item:

You can add series connector lines to an entire chart orto a single segment. If you click the connector item of asegment’s menu, a connector line is created at the topright corner of that segment. If you want a connector aspart of a waterfall calculation, you must use the specificwaterfall connector (see ‘Waterfall chart’ on page 49).Alternatively, universal connectors (see ‘Universal con-nectors’ on the current page) can be used when the de-sired connections cannot be achieved using standardconnectors.

Universal connectors

Toolbar icon:

Universal connectors are different from the other dec-orations described in this chapter, because they do not


belong to a specific smart-element or feature. Therefore,they are not available in the think-cell context menu.

Instead, you can insert universal connectors from thethink-cell toolbar. Double-click the toolbar button to in-sert multiple connectors. To leave insertion mode, clickthe button again or press the

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Each smart-element can offer connectable points. Theuniversal connector can connect any two connectablepoints that may or may not belong to the same smart-element. Use the universal connector if you need an un-usual connector that is not supported by the chart itself.

You can also use the universal connector to connect twodifferent charts. The handles at the ends of the connectorsnap to connectable points while you move them. Thehandle in the middle of the connector can be dragged tochange the straight connector to one with a right angle.

Note: The universal connector visually connects two ob-jects, but it has no effect on the calculation of the water-fall chart. If you want a connector as part of a waterfallcalculation, you must use the specific waterfall connec-tor (see ‘Waterfall chart’ on the following page). Stan-

dard connectors (see ‘Series connectors’ on the previouspage) are also available for a number of chart types andshould be used in preference to universal connectorswhen possible.

Legend

In menu: Chart

Menu item:

A legend can be used to clearly identify the various dataseries or groups in a chart.

A floating toolbar containing a line style and a font con-trol (‘Text label property controls’ on page 32) appearswhen the legend is selected, letting you specify a linestyle for the legend box and the size of the legend text.In addition, chart-specific property controls for the seriesand groups are available.

If you change the size of the legend’s frame the legendtext will be automatically reformatted to fit the new framesize. To create a horizontal legend for example pull theleft or right border of the frame outwards.

8. Waterfall chart

Toolbar icon:

A waterfall chart (sometimes called bridge chart) visu-alizes an additive calculation with subtotals. To create awaterfall chart, simply type the calculation into the datasheet:

Positive values result in segments going upwards, nega-tive values create segments going downwards. Subtotals– i.e. segments that go all the way down to the baseline

of the chart – are easily created with an e (for “equals”).In fact, you can use e in any segment that you want tobe stretched to fit the rest of the chart. All e segmentsare calculated by think-cell and automatically kept up-to-date when data changes.

You can even begin the calculation with an e in the firstcolumn. In this case, think-cell starts from the right-mostcolumn and calculates backward to find the value forthe e column. Thus, the following data sheet results inthe same chart as shown above:

Note: The value -42 in the final column indicates thatthe final segment is 42 units high, with the base-linereached by going 42 units downwards.

Waterfall chart 50

You may enter two or more values into a single column.If you have a column made up from more than one seg-ment, you can enter an e for at most one of them.Due to the complexity of the waterfall chart concept, onlysimple charts can be created by using the data sheetalone. If you notice that the chart does not build up theway you want it to, first finish typing in the data: It is easyto reconfigure the chart later with the mouse.

In a basic waterfall chart, every two columns are con-nected by precisely one horizontal connector. When se-lected, these connectors show two handles.

– Drag the connectors’ handles to change the waycolumns are connected in the waterfall.

– Remove a connector with�

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�Del , e. g., to start a

new summation or add a connector with theWaterfall Connector button in the context menu.

Based on the initial example, in the following chart theconnector between the 1st and 2nd columns has beenremoved:

Whenever you drag a connector, the entire chart rear-ranges to accommodate the change and all “equals”columns are updated.

Also based on the previous example, in the followingchart an equals column has been added and both endsof the highlighted connector have been moved:

If connectors are conflicting with each other, skew con-nectors will result. Remove some of the skew connectorsto resolve the problem.

If all segments are connected properly and the chart isstill not grounded on the baseline the way you want it to,select the segment that should be grounded and forceit to the baseline with the or buttons.

For example, to create a build-up waterfall with the totalon the left, enter the following data into the sheet:

The resulting chart looks as follows:

Now drag the right handle of the highlighted connectorto connect the “equals” column with the top of the lastsegment. This is the resulting chart:

Waterfall chart 51

If you want to create a build-down waterfall chart, usethe toolbar icon. The default data sheet is then filledwith values appropriate for a build-down waterfall. Apartfrom this, there is no difference between a build-up anda build-down waterfall chart in think-cell.

Waterfall charts can be decorated like column charts.You can decorate axes, add arrows, change gaps, etc.(see ‘Scales and axes’ on page 39 and ‘Arrows and val-ues’ on page 44)

The segment labels in waterfall charts by default showthe extent of the segment which is always a positivevalue. Negative values in the data sheet are representedvisually by downward-going segments. However, youcan set the number format to always show signed num-bers (see ‘Number format’ on page 32). In this case thesign in the data sheet will also be shown in the segmentlabel.

Percent of datasheet 100%= label content

Labels for segment difference arrows (see ‘Segment dif-ference arrow’ on page 44) in waterfall charts addition-ally support the display of values as percentages of the100%= value in the data sheet (% of datasheet 100%=).

Selecting % as the label content for a segment differencearrow label in a waterfall chart displays the differencebetween the start and end of the arrow, taking the start-ing point of the arrow to be 100%. In contrast, select-ing the % of datasheet 100%= label content displays thesame difference but takes the 100%= value of the col-umn pointed from by the start of the arrow to be 100%.

The above charts illustrate the two settings for the labelcontent. In the left diagram, the difference of 2 is com-pared to the starting value of 2, resulting in the display of+100%. When the 100%= value in the data sheet is leftempty it is taken to be the sum of the column. Therefore,in the right diagram, the difference of 2 is compared tothe column sum of 3, resulting in the display of +67%.

Another application is illustrated by the following chart.For the central column the waterfall total of 5 wasset as the 100%= value in the data sheet. Using the% of datasheet 100%= setting it is possible to show thatthe upper two segments correspond to 40% of this total.

9. Marimekko chart

Amarimekko chart (sometimes also calledmekko chart)is a two-dimensional stacked chart. In addition to thevarying segment heights of a regular stacked chart, amarimekko chart also has varying column widths.

Column widths are scaled such that the total widthmatches the desired chart width. To preserve the visualrelationship between widths of different columns, thereare no gaps between columns in a marimekko chart.

In fact, the baseline of a marimekko chart is a fullyfledged value axis. You can select it with the mouse, andyou can use its context menu to add tickmarks, tickmarklabels and an axis title (see ‘Value axis’ on page 39). Ifyou have enabled tickmarks for the baseline, you canuse the floating toolbar of the axis to switch betweenabsolute and percentage values.

A marimekko chart can also be decorated with some ofthe features described in ‘Scales and axes’ on page 39and ‘Arrows and values’ on page 44. The labels ofthe marimekko chart support the label content property,which lets you choose whether you want to display ab-solute values, percentages, or both (‘Label content’ onpage 33).

Marimekko chart with %-axis

Toolbar icon:

A marimekko chart with %-axis (sometimes also calledmekko chart or 100% cost curve) is a two-dimensional100% chart. As in the 100% chart, the value axis isbased on percentages and column heights are shownrelative to 100%. In the regular 100% chart, since thecolumns are scaled to relative heights, there is no visualrepresentation of absolute column totals.

The marimekko chart with %-axis extends the 100%chart and uses variable column widths to represent col-umn totals. Thus, the segment area is proportional to theabsolute value of the segments. As in the 100% chart, bydefault the data sheet takes percentages and the 100%-equivalent values are entered explicitly in the row la-

Marimekko chart 53

beled “Width”. As an example, the above marimekkochart is rendered from the following data sheet:

Alternatively, you can also enter absolute values into thedata sheet. In this case, for all columns that add up to100%, you can leave the width row empty. For detailsabout entering relative or absolute values refer to ‘Ab-solute and relative values’ on page 26.

Marimekko chart with units

Toolbar icon:

A marimekko chart with units (sometimes also calledsubmarine chart or olympic chart) is a two-dimensionalstacked chart. As in the regular stacked chart, the valueaxis and the data sheet of this chart are based on abso-lute values.

Width and height are controlled completely indepen-dently. Column widths are entered in the width row ontop and individual segment heights are entered as in aregular stacked chart.

Ridge

In menu: Chart

Menu item:

You can highlight the outline of the marimekko chart:Click the Ridge button to add or remove a boldridge.

10. Pie chart

Toolbar icon:

A pie chart is actually a special case of a 100% chartwith only one category (column) of data.

Each segment of a pie chart shows three handles, whenselected. Each of the handles can be dragged with themouse to rotate the pie. When rotating, the handlessnap at positions 0∘, 90∘, 180∘ and 270∘, making iteasy to create an aesthetically pleasing layout.

The pie chart remembers which handle you were drag-ging when rotating the chart and preserves the correctorientation even when the data is changed. In addition,you can drag the handles away from the pie in order toexplode the respective pie segment.

The labels of the pie chart support the label contentproperty, which lets you choose if you want to displayabsolute values, percentages, or both (‘Label content’on page 33). Additionally you can move each outsidelabel to place it anywhere on the outer edge of the re-spective segment.

Universal connectors can be used to connect pie chartswith other chart types (see ‘Universal connectors’ onpage 47).

11. Scatter and bubble charts

Scatter charts and bubble charts are similar in many as-pects, both using an xy-plot to visualize data sheet con-tents. The charts differ, however, in the style of markersused for the individual data points. The data sheet fora scatter chart is organized as follows, with each rowrepresenting a single data point:

The data sheet for a bubble chart contains values in the“Size” column, but is otherwise organized identically:

The “Group” column in the data sheet can be used toorganize individual data points into groups. In the abovescatter chart data sheet, the first three data points belongto group A while the remaining data points belong togroup B. Multiple data points belonging to the samegroup can be easily selected by clicking on a data pointand then moving the mouse pointer while holding downthe

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�Shift ⇑ key (see ‘Multi-selection’ on page 22).

Also the axes of scatter charts and bubble charts can beadjusted. Please refer to ‘Scales and axes’ on page 39for details. You may also use dates for the X or Y val-ues. When all cells in the data sheet for one axis con-tain dates and Excel’s cell format is set to Date, thenthe tickmark labels of this axis show dates and you canformat them accordingly (see ‘Date format control’ onpage 68).

Labels

In both chart types, up to two labels can be associ-ated with each data point. Labels can be added us-ing the Add Label button and removed using theRemove Labels button. The label content control lets youselect the format of the text field for each label, allow-

Scatter and bubble charts 56

ing the display of the label text as well as the x, y andsize values (see ‘Label content’ on page 33). By default,labels are disabled in charts containing more than 50data points. If required, they can be enabled using thecontext menu.

The automatic labeler places labels as close to their datapoints as possible, using connecting lines if necessary(see ‘Automatic label placement’ on page 30). The la-beler starts as soon as the data sheet is closed, restartingwhen data values, labels or sizes are changed.

While the labeler is busy calculating the label place-ments, a rotating progress icon appears in the up-per left corner of the chart and the concerned chart ishighlighted with a light gray frame. You can save the fileor continue to work on other charts or slides while thelabeler is running.

In rare circumstances the labeler may not find an opti-mal placement for all labels. When this happens, man-ually placing labels will help. Try to manually place oneof the poorly placed labels and let the labeler automat-ically place the remaining labels. An acceptable place-ment for all labels can normally be achieved by manu-ally placing only a few problematic labels.

Scatter chart

Toolbar icon:

The scatter chart uses the marker scheme control to con-sistently mark data points belonging to the same group(see ‘Marker scheme’ on page 24). The marker shapecontrol can be used to set the marker shape for individ-ual data points (see ‘Marker shape’ on page 24).1

If you choose No Markers in the marker scheme con-trol, the markers for the data points are switched off. Inthis case the labels are centered on the position of thedata points. However, the automatic label placementmay offset the labels from this position to prevent over-lap.

It is not possible to both switch off the marker and hidethe label for a data point.

1 As a former MS Graph user you might be used to using ascatter chart with lines to render a line chart with a valueaxis. In think-cell, a value axis is directly supported by theline chart. Please refer to ‘Line chart’ on page 36 for details.


Bubble chart

Toolbar icon:

The bubble chart is a variant of the scatter chart, withdata points marked by circles. The circle sizes are deter-mined by the values in the “Size” column, with a fixedsize used for the largest circle. By default, the “Size”value is proportional to the area of the circle. Thebutton in the context menu can be used to set the “Size”value to be proportional to the diameter of each circle.

To enable a legend of the bubble size, clickAdd Bubble Size Legend in the chart’s context

menu.

Trendline and partition

In menu: Chart, data point

Menu item:

Trendline

In scatter or bubble charts you can let think-cell calcu-late a trend line for a group of values. A trendline is agraphical representation of trends in the group. They areused for the study of problems of prediction, also calledregression analysis.

There are two ways to add a trendline to the chart:

– Right-click a marker or a bubble of the desired groupand select Add Trendline from the context menu.

– Select a partition line (see ‘Partition’ on the follow-ing page). In the toolbar you can choose a group ofvalues and the line is changed to a trendline for thisgroup.

You can change the background color on one side of theline and move the line in the same way as for a partitionline (see ‘Partition’ on the next page). However, onceyou have moved the line, it will no longer be calculatedfrom the values in the data sheet.


Partition

You can add a partition line to scatter or bubble chartsto point up a partition of a set. To add a partition line,select Add Trendline/Partition from the chart’s contextmenu.

You can move the line by clicking on it and dragging it tothe desired position. It is also possible to select the par-tition line and then drag the handles at the beginning orend of the partition line. While dragging, the end pointswill snap to nice values. The spacing of the snap pointsdepends on your current zoom level. If you hold downthe

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�Shift ⇑ key while dragging, the angle of the partition

line is constrained to the current angle or to that of avertical, horizontal or diagonal line.

To make a copy of a partition line, hold down the�

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�Ctrl

key while dragging. This is an easy way to create parallellines, e.g. to mark a range of values.

You can change the background color of a set by click-ing on the partition line and selecting a backgroundcolor from the toolbar. To set the background color ofthe area on the other side of the line, right-click the parti-tion line and select Flip Filled Side. You can also sim-ply double-click the partition line.

If you want to calculate the position and angle of theline based on the values in the chart, see ‘Trendline’ onthe preceding page.

12. Project timeline (Gantt chart)

Toolbar icon:

A project timeline (sometimes called Gantt chart) visu-alizes project activities. The scale of a project timelineis a calendar. The duration of activities is representedby bars or process arrows, whereas singular events arerepresented by milestones.

Calendar scale

Naturally, in a project timeline the scale is based ondates. With think-cell, you can quickly change the vis-

ible date range. The appearance of the scale is initiallyautomatic, but can be manually modified if needed.

Modifying the date range

When inserting a new project timeline, the calendar isinitially scaled to show some time before and some timeafter the current date. There are two ways to change thedate range that is shown.

You can open a calendar and select the dates you want:

– Double-click on a scale, e. g., the bar showingmonths, to open the calendar dialog.

– Alternatively click the Open Calendar button in thechart menu.

Project timeline (Gantt chart) 60

– Today’s date is marked red.

– Select the desired start date with a single click, andselect the desired end date with another click whileholding down

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�Shift ⇑ . You may also just hold down the

mouse button and drag the mouse along to deter-mine a range. In the upper right corner you will findadditional information about the selected period.

– Alternatively, you can use the cursor keys�

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and�

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pand the selection, hold down�

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�Shift ⇑ while moving.

– To edit a selection you can grab its beginning or endand drag it to the desired date.

– To scroll the calendar one line at a time, use yourmouse’s scroll wheel, click the scroll bar arrows, ordrag the scroll bar handle. To scroll the calendar onepage at a time, click onto the scroll bar above or be-low the handle.

– To jump to an arbitrary date, select the desired monthand year using the controls in the window’s toolbar.You can simply type in the desired year, if you do notwant to use the control’s up/down buttons. The cal-endar immediately scrolls to the desired position.

– You can vertically resize the window to see moremonths at a time, and you can horizontally resize thewindow to adjust the font size. The width of the win-dow does not have an impact on the calendar layout:One line always represents precisely one month.

– When you are done, simply return to the PowerPointslide by clicking the calendar window’s OK buttonor by clicking on the slide. The selected date rangewill then be applied to the chart. If you want to dis-

card your selection and keep the current setting, clickCancel or press

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�Esc .

Alternatively, if you only need to adjust the beginningor the end of the range, you can simply change thesevalues with the mouse:

1. Select a scale, e. g., the bar showing months.

2. Click and drag the handle that appears on the se-lected scale. The current date is displayed as a tooltipwhile you drag.

3. When you drop the handle, the chart is rearrangedto accommodate the new date range.

While dragging the handles, they snap to integral unitsof the selected scale. You can quickly expand the chartto cover a large date range by dragging the handles ofa scale with large units (e. g., years or months).

Scale display

When changing the date range orthe size of a chart, some scales aswell as vertical separator lines mayappear or disappear. Based on therange you select, together with thechart size and font size, think-cellsuggests appropriate scales andseparators to show. To make gooduse of this feature, you should firstselect the desired date range before manually addingor removing scales or separators.


Altogether, there are five scales available in the projecttimeline chart: Years, quarters, months, weeks and days.In addition to showing or hiding scales, think-cell sup-ports several options to change the look of the calendar.Use the Scales menu to configure the calendar to yourliking.

The Scales menu offers the following options:

– Show or hide each of the five available scales (years,quarters, months, weeks, days). Depending on thechart’s current size and date range, some scales maynot be available because there is not enough room toshow their units. Once you decided to show a scaleit will not hide again automatically, even when thechart’s size or date range is changed.

– Enable or disable Workweek Only. When enabled,weekends are not shown in the chart.

– Enable or disable Weekend Shades. This option is onlyavailable if Workweek Only is disabled.

– Week Starts... lets you set the day that the think-cellcalendar will use as the start of week.

– Weekend...: Here you can choose the days that matchthe weekend in your country.

– Fit Scale to Data: The chart’s date range is adjustedsuch that all bars, milestones and brackets becomevisible.

Each scale supports various ways to display date infor-mation, e. g., the months scale may show month nameslike “September” or numbers like “09”. You probablywant to choose the appropriate format depending onthe available space.

To do so, select the scale with themouse and use the floating tool-bar that appears to select the de-sired format. Since the dropdownmenu is actually a date format con-trol (see ‘Date format control’ on page 68), you can alsotype in arbitrary date format strings.

Note: As with other labels, you can add arbitrary textto the scale labels, such as footnote markers or shortcomments.

Scale labels and separator lines

Each scale supports an optional label and optional sep-arator lines. To use these features, open the contextmenu for the desired scale with a right-click.

Note: Primary and secondary separator lines are auto-matically assigned different styles.

The scales’ context menu offers the following buttons:

Delete (Shortcut�

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�Delete ): Delete the selected scale.

You can show the scale again using the Scales menufrom the toolbar. When you deleted a scale it will notshow again automatically, even when the chart sizeor date range is changed.


Open Calendar (Shortcut double-click): Open thecalendar dialog (refer to ‘Modifying the date range’on page 59).

Add Vertical Separator Lines: Explicitly add or removevertical separator lines for the selected scale. Youcan also remove separator lines by selecting themand pressing the

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�Delete key. The software automat-

ically adds and removes these lines unless you aremaking an explicit choice.

Add Scale Label: Add descriptive text to the selectedscale. The label contains language-dependent pre-defined text which can be replaced as needed.

Rows (Activities)

A project timeline is made up of rows, each representinga certain activity that is named in the label to the left.The rows, in turn, contain timeline items such as bars,milestones and brackets.

You can explicitly select an entire row to change its look,add or remove labels, or drag it to another location.

Note: There is a special row below the chart reservedfor the most important milestones. You cannot add barsto this row, you cannot move it by drag-and-drop, and

you cannot delete it. Otherwise, it is just an additionalactivity row which is always there.

Adding and removing rows

To insert a new row, select an existing row and use theInsert Row button in the think-cell context menu. Al-

ternatively, press�

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there is still the extra row left at the very bottom of thechart which you can click to open the context menu andcreate new rows.

The keyboard shortcut�

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�Insert also inserts new rows

while editing labels, and the first label of the newly in-serted row is automatically selected. This way you canadd rows and keep typing without reaching for themouse. Likewise, you can use

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You can also use the Delete button in the think-cell context menu to delete an entire row. The keyboardshortcut for deletion is

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�Delete .

Row features

Each row not only contains timeline items – bars, pro-cess arrows, milestones, brackets – but can also haveup to three labels, a horizontal separator line, and rowshading. The labels and decorations are added and re-moved using the think-cell context menu. To open themenu, move the mouse outside of the chart’s date rangearea and right-click on a row when it highlights.

Note:When you right-click a row inside the chart’s daterange area, another menu opens that allows for inser-tion of new timeline items. Refer to ‘Adding items’ onpage 65 for more information.


The row’s context menu offers the following buttons. Youcan apply all of these buttons to one or multiple selectedrows:

Delete (Shortcut�

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�Delete ): Delete the selected row.

Insert Row (Shortcut�

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�Insert ): Insert a new row after

the selected one. If the selected row is the one be-low the chart’s bottom line, the new row is insertedbefore.

Add Activity Label Column (Shortcut�

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move the Activity label column. A headline for thecolumn is added which you can overwrite or removeif necessary. With

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Activity label.

Add Responsible Label Column: Add or remove theResponsible label column. A headline for the col-umn is added which you can overwrite or remove ifnecessary.

Add Remark Label Column: Add or remove the Re-mark label column. A headline for the column isadded which you can overwrite or remove if neces-sary.

Add Row Shade: Add or remove shading. You canchange the shading’s color and also add or removethe shading using the fill control in the think-celltoolbar. Shading works also well for multiple suc-cessive rows.

Add Row Separator: Add or remove a separator lineabove the selected row.

Row labels

Each row supports up to three labels, resulting in upto three text columns next to the actual timeline. Thedefault headlines for the three columns are languagedependent (see ‘Language dependency’ on page 69),with Activity, Responsible and Remark used as the de-fault English headlines. You are free to overwrite or re-move them if necessary.

The labels to the left are intended for names of activi-ties. These labels are shown by default and each labelbelongs to exactly one row. If you already have the textfor the labels available in some other place, you canquickly copy-paste an entire label column (see ‘Pastingtext into multiple labels’ on page 33).

You can add up to two more columns if required. Thelabels for the headlines are automatically added when acolumn is created. The labels in the additional columnscan refer to multiple rows (see ‘Labels spanning multiplerows’ on the following page).

Initially, a newly created label column is empty exceptfor its headline. Move the mouse over the label columnto discover label placeholders, which you can select justas any other features in think-cell. Use the placeholder’scontext menu to create either a text label, or a check-box, or a Harvey ball. To quickly create a text label, youcan simply select a placeholder and start typing. Simi-larly, you can recreate the headline labels, if you deletedthem.

The row label’s context menu shows the following but-tons:

Delete (Shortcut�

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�Delete ): Delete the selected label.


Switch to Checkbox: Use a checkbox instead of a textlabel. If the selected label already contains text, thetext will be discarded.

Switch to Harvey ball: Use a Harvey ball instead of atext label. If the selected label already contains text,the text will be discarded.

Switch to Text Label (Shortcut�

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�F2 or start typing): Use

text for this label. Select and overwrite the place-holder text that is inserted when you click this but-ton.

Add Bracket: Add or remove the selected label’sbracket. Brackets are added automatically tolabels that span more than one row (see Labelsspanning multiple rows). This option only appliesto Responsible and Remark labels. Since Activitylabels always refer to precisely one row, theselabels do not need brackets.

To remove a label, use its context menu or simply deleteall text from the label – it will then disappear. To removemultiple labels at a time, it is often convenient to selectall desired labels using the mouse together with

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�Ctrl keys (see also ‘Multi-selection’ on page 22). Then,choose the delete option from the context menu, or pressthe

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�Delete key to remove all selected labels.

Checkbox and Harvey ball

In both Responsible and Remark columns, you canchoose to display a checkbox or a Harvey ball insteadof a text label. Select the feature to configure itsappearance using the think-cell toolbar. Use the fontsize control to adjust the size of the feature, and use thecolor control to change its primary color. These controls

are available for both checkboxes and Harvey balls(see ‘Color and fill’ on page 23, ‘Font’ on page 32).

When you select a checkbox, an additional control be-comes available in the toolbar, which you can use tochange the checkmark symbol. You can also quicklychange the symbol by double-clicking the checkbox, orby pressing the associated key on your keyboard; e.g.,�

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�v for “check” or

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�x for “cross”.

When you select a Harvey ball, an additional controlbecomes available in the toolbar, which you can use tochange the Harvey ball’s completion state. You can alsoquickly change the Harvey ball’s state by double-clickingit, or by pressing

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Next to the control you will find another control withnumbers. These numbers indicate the number of piecesof the Harvey ball. You can manually add your own val-ues by entering them in the box.

Labels spanning multiple rows

In both Responsible and Remark columns, each labelcan refer to more than one activity. Drag the handlesthat appear next to the label when you select it, to de-termine the activities it refers to. You can only drag a


label’s handles across rows that do not already havea label in the same column, and you cannot drag thehandles across horizontal separators.

A bracket will automatically appear as soon as a labelspans more than one row. In this case, you are free toremove the bracket by selecting it and pressing

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�Delete , or

via the bracket’s or the label’s context menu.

Timeline itemsThere are several types of items used in a project timelineto visualize periods of time and events. The followingitems are supported by think-cell:

– Bars show the duration of some activity.

– Process arrows are similar to bars but contain text.They grow and shrink vertically with the amount of

text they contain. To create an aesthetically pleasinglayout, all process arrows of a Gantt chart are resizedto the same height, if possible.

– Milestones mark singular events.

– Brackets are used to label periods of time which typ-ically comprise multiple activity bars.

– Shades are used to visualize non-working times suchas weekends or holidays. They are usually labeled byan additional bracket below the chart.

Adding items

To add an item to the chart, move the mouse acrossthe chart’s date range area. A crosshair helps you totrack the row and date you are pointing at, and a tooltipprovides precise date information.

The dates that can be selected depend on the chart’sdate range and size, and on your current zoom level.If days are too small to be pointed at individually, thecrosshair snaps to firsts of weeks and firsts of months. Ifeven weeks are too small to be distinctively selected, thecrosshair only snaps to the beginning of months.

Wherever the crosshair appears, it is possible to inserta new item. When you move the mouse over existingitems, the crosshair disappears and the tooltip reflectsthat item’s date or date span.


With the crosshair highlighting, click the right mousebutton to open the context menu.

Note: If you want to open the row’s context menu toinsert a new row or to add some row label or decoration,you must right-click on the row outside the chart’s daterange area. Refer to ‘Row features’ on page 62 for moreinformation.

The context menu for insertion shows the following but-tons:

Delete (Shortcut�

�

�

�Delete ): Delete the selected row, sep-

arator line, or milestone line.

New Bar: Create a new activity bar beginning at thecrosshair position.

New Milestone: Create a new milestone at thecrosshair position.

New Bracket: Create a new bracket beginning at thecrosshair position.

New Shade: Create a new shade beginning at thecrosshair position.

New Process: Create a new process arrow beginningat the crosshair position.

Note: You can also create new items by clicking anddragging existing items while holding down the

�

�

�

�Ctrl key.

A copy of the original item is created at the new location.

Moving items

There are several ways to move existing items to anotherdate or row. Obviously, you can drag one or multipleselected (‘Multi-selection’ on page 22) items with themouse. If exactly one item is selected, you can also dragits handle(s) to adjust the date, or anchor it to anotheritem (see ‘Anchoring items’ on the following page). Youcan also select an entire row in order to see all handlesof the row’s items.

You may double-click an item to open thecalendar dialog for easy date selection. The currentdate of the selected item is pre-selected. For bars,process arrows, brackets and shades, select a daterange as described above (‘Modifying the date range’on page 59). For milestones, simply click on the desireddate; the calendar dialog will close immediately andthe selected date will be applied.

Milestone positioning

Bars and process arrows are positioned to begin at0:00h on the start date and to finish at 24:00h on theend date. The default position of milestones, however,depends on the currently viewed date range and the vis-ible scales:

– If the day scale or the vertical day separator lines arevisible, then milestones are positioned at 12:00h onthe appropriate day;

– If the day scale and the vertical day separator lines arenot visible, then milestones are positioned at 0:00hon the appropriate day.

The default positioning of milestones is usually correctbut can be overridden, if required, by the use of anchors


(‘Anchoring items’ on this page). Anchoring a milestoneto the end of a bar, for example, will ensure that themilestone is always aligned with the end of the bar, re-gardless of the currently viewed data range or visiblescales.

Anchoring items

Using the handles of bars, process arrows, milestones,brackets and shades, you can attach these items to otheritems. When you click a handle with the mouse, theavailable anchors highlight. Drag the handle within thecurrent row to set the selected item’s date manually, ordrag the handle onto an anchor of some other item toattach it to that item.

Items remain anchored while they are being edited. Forinstance, when you anchor a milestone to the end of abar, this connection enforces that the milestone is alwaysat the same date as the end of that bar. In particular,whenever you move the bar afterwards, the location ofthe milestone will be updated accordingly.

For another example, inserting a shade implicitly createsan additional bracket which is anchored to the shade.When you move the shade, the attached bracket movesalong. Still, you can detach the bracket, move it to adifferent location, or delete it.

Note: Items can be anchored across different rows.When you drag an item’s handle, the date changes butthe item remains in its row. To move an item to a differentrow, drag the item itself, not its handles.

Changing the chart’s appearance

You can change the color of bars, process arrows, mile-stones and shades using the color control in the floatingtoolbar (‘Color and fill’ on page 23). The backgroundcolor of the chart can be changed by selecting the wholechart and choosing the desired color from the floatingtoolbar.

By way of the context menu, you can further configurethe appearance of timeline items. The context menu fortimeline items comprises the following buttons (depend-ing on the type of the selected item):

Delete (Shortcut�

�

�

�Delete ): Delete the selected item.

Open Calendar (Shortcut double-click): Open thecalendar dialog for the selected item (refer to ‘Mov-ing items’ on the preceding page).

Set Solid/Dashed: Toggle the appearance of theselected bar or process arrow between solid anddashed.

Add Date Label (Shortcut�

�

�

�F2 ): Add or remove a label

for the selected item. By pressing�

�

�

�F2 , you can edit

the label’s item, or create it if it does not yet exist.By default, the label contains the item’s date which


is updated when the item moves. (see also ‘Item la-bels’ on the current page)

Set Diamond/Triangle Shape: Toggle the shape of theselected milestone between triangle and diamond.

Add Milestone Line: Add a milestone line to the se-lected milestone.

Item labels

Bars, process arrows, milestones and brackets can havelabels, while shades are usually labeled by means of anadditional bracket below the shade. Use the think-cellcontext menu to add a label to one or more selecteditems. If exactly one item is selected, you can press

�

�

�

�F2 to

add a label to this item or edit an existing label.

By default, an item label contains the item’s date or datespan. This information is maintained in a text field (see‘Text fields’ on page 31) and is updated whenever theitem is moved. You can add text to the label or replacethe default content with custom text.

If you deleted the text field you can alwaysre-insert it into the label. Select the labeland choose the desired field from the labelcontent control in the context-sensitive toolbar (refer to‘Label content’ on page 33).

In particular, think-cell allows for large multi-line labelseven in a relatively dense chart. All activities are auto-matically arranged to make the text fit. Moreover, mostlabels can be dragged to place themselves below or be-sides their respective item.

Date format control

You can freely set the desired formattingfor date values that appear throughoutthe labels of a project timeline. By con-vention, all item labels of a chart sharethe same date formatting, so when youchange the formatting for one label, allothers will change correspondingly.

When you select a label that contains a date field, orselect a date field within a label, the date format con-trol appears in the floating toolbar. It works similar tothe number format control (see ‘Number format’ onpage 32).

The dropdown menu facilitates one-click selection of themost commonly used date formats. Its contents dependson the feature that is selected, e. g., each scale offers adifferent set of predefined date formats.

The edit box reflects the current setting and allows enter-ing of arbitrary date formatting. The format codes usedby Excel and Graph are supported, and some morecodes were added for the particular purposes of theproject timeline (see table below). Also, up to four ofyour most recently used custom formattings are avail-able in the dropdown box.

Date format codes are case-insensitive. You can inserta line break with the backslash character ∖.You can mix the format codes with arbitrary text and de-limiters. If your custom text contains characters that can


be interpreted as format codes, i. e., d D w W m M q Qy Y ∖, you must enclose the text within single quotes '.It will then be displayed ’as is’. To use the single quotecharacter itself, type two single quotes ''.

Language dependency

The project timeline chart is language dependent: Thedisplay of full or abbreviated month names, as well asnames for weekdays, the default headlines for the ac-tivity labels and the default text for scale labels, dependon the default PowerPoint language setting when the el-ements were inserted.

You can alter the language used for language depen-dent elements as follows:

1. Alter the default PowerPoint language to the desiredlanguage.

2. Use the appropriate context menu to remove andthen re-add the language dependent labels that youwish to update.

3. Use the Scales menu to first hide and then re-showthe scales that you wish to update.

Date format codes

Code Description Example

d day of month 5

dd day of month (two-digit) 05

ddd day of week (abbrev.) Mon

dddd day of week (full) Monday

ddddd day of week (single character) M

w week of year 7

ww week of year (two-digit) 07

M month number 9

MM month number (two-digit) 09

MMM month name (abbrev.) Sep

MMMM month name (full) September

MMMMM month name (single character) S

q quarter (decimal number) 4

qq quarter (upper-case romannumber) IV

qqq quarter (lower-case romannumber) iv

yy year (two-digit) 04

yyyy year (four-digit) 2004

∖ (Backslash) line break, e. g., ddd∖dd Mon05

'...' Insert custom text, e. g.,'Quarter' qq Quarter IV

'' The actual single quotecharacter, e. g., 'W'ww''yy W07'04

13. Excel data links

When the source data for your data-driven charts isavailable in Excel, you can create charts directly fromthe Excel application. When data in Excel changes, youcan either update the charts on command or have think-cell do the update automatically.

Creating a chart from Excel

For a step-by-step guide on how to create a chart fromyour Excel data using think-cell, please consider the ex-ample from ‘Introduction to think-cell’ on page 13. Thisis how the example chart data looks in Excel:

To create a chart from Excel, select the desired datarange in your Excel workbook, including series and cat-egory labels:

The layout of your data must match the layout of think-cell’s internal data sheet: Column charts are usually cre-ated from data columns, whereas bar charts are createdfrom data rows. Nevertheless it is possible to transposethe data source (see ‘Transposing linked data’ on thefollowing page). In addition to the data, some cells tothe left and on top are reserved for category and serieslabels.1

Then select the desired chart type from the Charts menuin Excel’s think-cell toolbar:

1 If you are unsure about the exact layout required, simplyinsert a new chart of the desired type in PowerPoint andrefer to the layout of its data sheet.

Excel data links 71

When you click on this menu item in Excel, the Power-Point window is activated. If PowerPoint is not yet run-ning, it starts automatically. In PowerPoint, when themouse pointer is on a slide, the familiar insertion rect-angle appears.

Switch to the slide where you want to insert the chart, orinsert a new slide, and place the chart as usual: Clickonce, or click, hold and drag to change the chart’s initialsize. For a detailed description on how to place, resizeand align a new chart, please refer to ‘Inserting a newchart’ on page 13.

After insertion, the chart looks and behaves like a regu-lar think-cell chart that has been created in PowerPoint:

Please refer to ‘Adding and removing labels’ on page 15and ‘Styling the chart’ on page 17 to learn how to con-figure and style the chart.

As well as creating a new chart, you can link a selecteddata range in your Excel workbook to an existing chart ina PowerPoint presentation. Simply select the buttonfrom the Charts menu in Excel’s think-cell toolbar andclick on the chart in PowerPoint that you wish to link to.

Note: Text fields in PowerPoint can contain up to 57characters. Any additional text from the Excel datasource will be truncated.

Transposing linked data

Having linked a data range to a chart, you can alterhow the data is interpreted using the Transpose Link

button in the think-cell context menu of the data range.Transposing a data range swaps the chart’s row and col-umn data interpretation, letting you, for example, createcolumn charts from rows rather than columns of data.

Note: Transposing a linked data range does not swapthe data in the rows and columns.

Updating a linked chart

The most important feature of a chart that is linked toan Excel workbook is the option to update the chart ac-cording to changes in the underlying data. In our exam-ple, we want to add a third data series. Double-click thechart to switch to the linked data range in Excel. Enterthe additional data below the linked range:

Then, select the linked range by clicking on its border toshow the familiar think-cell user interface. Drag a cornerof the selection to include the newly entered data:

Excel data links 72

Finally, return to PowerPoint. When selecting the linkedchart, it is flagged to indicate that an update of its linkeddata has been detected:

Click the Update button next to the flag to incorporatethe data changes from Excel in the chart. The chart isupdated and the flag disappears:

After pressing Update, this button changes to Revert.Click it to take back the changes you just made. TheRevert button is available until the PowerPoint file isclosed or the Excel data source changes again. In thelater case, it is replaced by the Update button.

Even if the chart is not updated, or is updated and thenreverted again, the link to the Excel data source remains.Thus, you always have the option to update the chartlater.

You can also let think-cell automatically update thelinked chart for you. This option is available in theData Links dialog (‘Data Links dialog’ on the followingpage).

Note: Linking a chart to data in Excel using think-celldoes not depend on the file names of the Excel or Power-Point file. Each chart as well as each data range in Excelis assigned a unique identification number that is used tomaintain the link. The technical requirement for reestab-lishing a link is that both the Excel file containing the datarange and the PowerPoint file containing the chart aresimultaneously open on the same computer, irrespectiveof the file names.

Excel data links 73

Data Links dialogIf you have a large number of charts in your presenta-tion, finding and updating all linked charts manually isnot practical. For a better overview and a more directedapproach to update your charts, go to the More menuin PowerPoint and open the Data Links dialog:

The data links dialog shows all linked charts of the cur-rent presentation and their update states:

For each linked chart, the following information is avail-able in the data links dialog:

– Slide number and a thumbnail that shows the positionof the chart on the slide.

– Name of the Excel file that contains the linked data.

– Time stamp of the last modification of the linked data.

– Update or Revert button. The linked Excel file must beopen for these buttons to be available.

– Auto checkbox, indicating whether or not the chart isbeing updated automatically as soon as changes inthe linked data are detected.

– The chart entry appears in bold when an update ispending.

You can leave the data link dialog open while you con-tinue editing your slides and data. Using the data linksdialog, you can efficiently manage all linked charts andtheir data sources:

Click on the heading of any of the described columns tosort the list of charts by that column.

Single-click on a row to select the chart (in Normal view)or the slide (in Slide Sorter view).

A double-click on a row has the same effect as a double-click on the chart itself: The linked Excel workbook isopened and the linked data is selected. If the datasource is not available, the internal data sheet is openedinstead.

The Update and Revert buttons are the same as the onesin the upper right corner of the chart: Click the Updatebutton to incorporate data changes from Excel in thePowerPoint chart. Click Revert to undo the update andreturn to the chart’s previous state. You can also clickRevert to undo the latest automatic update.

Check the Auto checkbox to let think-cell automaticallyupdate the chart whenever changes in the linked dataare detected. The chart is not highlighted or flagged, butyou still have the option to manually revert the automaticupdate. Change detection works only while both files,Excel and PowerPoint, are open at the same time.

Note: If the linked Excel file for a chart is not available,and the internal data sheet is opened and edited, thenautomatic updating for the linked chart will be disabled.This ensures that any changes made using the internaldata sheet are not automatically overwritten when thelinked Excel file becomes available.

Excel data links 74

Update, Revert and changing the Auto setting all workon multi-selections as well. Use

�

�

�

�Shift ⇑-click to select a

range of links, and�

�

�

�Ctrl-click to toggle the selection of

individual charts.

Maintaining data links

After the creation of a link between Excel data and achart in PowerPoint, both Excel and PowerPoint files con-tinue to be self-contained independent files:

– You can pass on or edit the files independently.

– You can rename the files. The data links will bereestablished as soon as the Excel and PowerPointfiles are open at the same time. To store the infor-mation about the reestablished data links the filesshould be saved.

– You can copy and paste linked charts within the samepresentation or even to another presentation. Thecopy of the chart will then be linked to the same datasource as the original.

– You can send the Excel and PowerPoint files by e-mail.The data links will be reestablished as soon as theExcel and PowerPoint files are open at the same timeon the computer of the receiver. To store the informa-tion about the reestablished data links the files shouldbe saved.

– You can make copies of linked Excel files and use thecopies as alternative data sources for the data links.The original and copied Excel files can be indepen-dently edited. The link between a PowerPoint presen-tation and the desired Excel file will be establishedwhen opening one of either the original or the copiedExcel files together with the PowerPoint file.

Editing linked files

If you edit the PowerPoint file without the linked Excelfile(s) being available, linked charts simply behave asregular charts with an internal data sheet. Using think-cell, you can change the chart’s design and data withoutrestriction.

Similarly, you can freely edit an Excel workbook with-out the linked PowerPoint file(s) being available. Withthink-cell installed, any linked data ranges that are notcurrently connected to an open PowerPoint presentation,are highlighted with a light red frame.

As soon as you open both the data source in Excel andthe chart in PowerPoint at the same time, the link isreestablished. In Excel, the highlight of the linked datarange changes from red to green. In PowerPoint, thechart’s current data is compared to the data source. Ifchanges are detected, the chart is highlighted in the datalinks dialog, and it is flagged when selected. You cannow manually update the chart to the latest data fromExcel.

Changing and removing links

To disconnect a chart from its linked data source, sim-ply select the button Break Excel Link from the chart’scontext menu:

Excel data links 75

From that point on, the chart only uses the think-cell datasheet in PowerPoint.

Similarly, you can disconnect a linked data range inExcel from its charts: Select the linked range by click-ing on its frame. When the frame turns blue, indicat-ing a think-cell selection, right-click on it and select the

Delete button. The think-cell frame is removed whilethe data itself remains untouched. Any linked charts willno longer be able to connect to this data range astheir data source, and will instead use their internal datasheets.

Note: You cannot undo the removal of a linked frame,but you can create a new link with an existing chart,when you need it (see below).

Whenever you remove one participant of a link, eitherthe data range in Excel or the chart in PowerPoint, theother side does not get deleted with it. Charts in Power-Point fall back to using their internal data sheets, andlinked data ranges in Excel simply remain in place un-til they are explicitly removed. This is important becausethere may be other charts in other presentations linkingto the same data source.

If you want to link an existing chart to an Excel datasource, first go to the Excel workbook and select thedesired data range. You can also select an existinglinked range, indicated by the colored think-cell selec-tion frame. Then switch to PowerPoint and select the de-sired chart. If the chart is already linked to some otherdata source, disconnect it as described above. Nowthe Excel link button in the chart’s context menu haschanged to Establish Excel Link. Click this button toestablish a link from the selected chart in PowerPoint tothe selected data range in Excel.

Note: If you want to remove all data links from a pre-sentation, use the data links dialog (‘Data Links dialog’on page 73). In the data links dialog, you can simplyselect all charts and press

�

�

�

�Delete to remove all links in a

single action.

How to compile the data

When creating charts directly from Excel, you probablyalready have your data in Excel. In some cases, however,you may not wish to create a chart using all the data youhave in your Excel sheet. Alternatively, the data may bein a fixed format that can not be easily altered. Here area few suggestions that may help you in such situations:

– Add a new sheet to the Excel file and compile thedata for your charts on this “interface” sheet. If youcreate this sheet using Excel references, then the datain the sheet and the linked charts in PowerPoint willbe updated whenever the original referred to datachanges. Using a dedicated sheet as the source foryour charts also facilitates preparing the data specifi-cally for the intended purpose. For example, you canuse think-cell round to consistently round the data be-

Excel data links 76

fore presenting them in a chart (see ‘think-cell round’on page 82).

– You can simply hide entire rows or columns of datafrom being reflected in the chart by using Excel’s Hidecommand. Keep in mind that the hidden data will ap-pear in the chart as soon as you use Excel’s Unhidecommand and update the chart.

– Similarly, you can use Excel’s Group and Outline fea-ture to hide data that you do not want to be shown inthe chart.

Frequently asked questionsWhat are the advantages over Microsoft OLE?

You may be familiar with OLE (Object Linking and Em-bedding) in Microsoft Office. The idea is similar to think-cell’s linking, allowing the creation of charts in Power-Point that can later be updated with data changes from

Excel. However, think-cell’s linking technique has sev-eral advantages over OLE:

– The charts are always the same, whether they arelinked or not. Even linked charts are native MS Graphcharts, not Excel charts pasted into PowerPoint.

– Charts can be linked to Excel at any time, not onlywhen they are created.

– Linked charts remain editable, even when the linkeddata source is not available.

– Links in think-cell are independent of the file nameor path. Simply open both files and any existing linksbetween the files are reestablished.

What happens when copying a linked chart?

You can copy a linked chart just like any other chart byduplicating a slide, duplicating the chart,

�

�

�

�Ctrl-dragging

the chart or copy-pasting the chart to another slide orto another presentation. In fact, even making a copy ofthe presentation file is a way to copy a contained linkedchart.

In any case, the original and the copy are indistinguish-able. Both link to the same Excel data range and, if theyare open simultaneously, will both receive an updatewhen Excel data changes.

What happens when a linked chart is deleted?

When you delete a linked chart, the link in PowerPointis removed together with the chart. If there is no otherchart in an open presentation linking to the same Exceldata range, the frame in Excel turns from green to red,indicating that the link cannot be established.

Excel data links 77

The linked data range in Excel is not affected in anyother way by the deletion of a linked chart. After all, it ispossible that a copy of the linked chart has been made,which, when opened, should reestablish its link.

How can I get rid of the red frames in my Excelworksheets?

Different coloured frames in the Excel worksheets indi-cate linked data ranges. A green frame indicates thata link has been established between the framed datarange and a chart in an open PowerPoint presentation.In contrast, a red frame indicates that no linked chart iscurrently open. A red frame does not necessarily meanthat there are no charts at all linking to that data range. Itjust means that in the currently open presentations thereare no such charts.

If you are sure that the framed data range is no longerrequired as a data source for any charts, you can re-move the frame with the Delete button from the con-text menu. Together with the frame, the link informationis removed from the Excel workbook. Any charts that arelinked to the concerned Excel data range will not be ableto establish their links in the future. Instead, they will usetheir internal data sheets.

The Excel data itself is not affected.

How can I see which charts in a presentation arelinked, and where their linked data sources are?

If you are unsure about the data sources of the chartsin a presentation, go to the More menu and open theData Links dialog. This dialog displays a list of all linkedcharts in the current presentation. Click on an entry todisplay the corresponding chart.

The file name of the Excel file where the linked datarange was last found is also available. The Auto check-box indicates if the chart has been set to update auto-matically.

For a detailed description refer to section ‘Data Linksdialog’ on page 73.

What happens to a linked chart when its data sourceis unavailable?

When the Excel workbook that contains a chart’s linkeddata range is not open and cannot be found in the samefile location where it used to be, the chart cannot estab-lish its link. Instead, it will use its internal data sheet,which always contains a copy of the linked data, andallow you to change the chart.

The internal data sheet of a linked chart is similar to theone of a regular chart. Even if there are multiple chartslinked to the same Excel range, their internal data sheetsare independent.

If you want to reestablish the link to the Excel data range,simply open the Excel workbook and the presentationwith the linked chart at the same time. The chart inPowerPoint and the data in Excel will then automaticallyconnect. When updating the chart with the linked data,any changes you made to the data in the internal datasheet will be overwritten.

How can I use the internal data sheet instead of thelinked Excel data source?

To disconnect a chart from its linked data source, usethe Break Excel Link button from the chart’s contextmenu. From now on, the chart only uses the think-celldata sheet in PowerPoint.

Excel data links 78

You can remove the link from a chart, whether the linkedExcel data range is currently open or not. For the Excelside of the data link, breaking the link of a chart has thesame effect as removing the chart.

For further information read section ‘Changing and re-moving links’ on page 74.

How can I enable or disable Auto-updating?

Go to the More menu and open the Data Links dialog.This dialog displays a list of all linked charts in the cur-rent presentation. The Auto checkbox determines if achart is set to update automatically.

When selecting a chart in the presentation, the corre-sponding entry in the Data Links dialog will be selected,and vice versa.

For a detailed description refer to section ‘Data Linksdialog’ on page 73.

Why is my linked chart not updating although it is setto Auto-update?

The PowerPoint side and the Excel side of a data link canonly connect when both files are open at the same time.Therefore, when the data in Excel is changed while thePowerPoint presentation is not open, and then the pre-sentation is opened without the Excel workbook beingopen at the same time, the linked charts will not detectthe changes in their data sources. As soon as the Excelworkbook containing the linked data range is open, thelink will be established and the changes will be detected.If the chart is set to Auto-update, it will update now. Oth-erwise, the chart will be highlighted in the Data Links di-alog, and it will be flagged when selected. You can then

decide whether you want to incorporate the changeddata into the chart or not.

For more information read section ‘Updating a linkedchart’ on page 71.

Why is my linked chart indicating a pending updatealthough the data in Excel did not change?

Whenever a link is established between an open Power-Point presentation and an open Excel workbook, thedata from the internal data sheet is compared to thelinked data range. If they are not the same, the chart isflagged to indicate that an update is due. If Auto-updateis enabled, it is updated immediately.

A “pending update” may also be detected when the datain the Excel workbook is unchanged, but the data inthe internal data sheet has been modified. For a linkedchart, the linked Excel data range takes priority overthe internal data sheet. Therefore, an update will alwaysoverwrite any changes in the internal data sheet.

To protect you against data loss, whenever you makechanges in the internal data sheet of a linked chart,Auto-update is disabled for the concerned chart.

How can I link an existing chart to a data range in anExcel workbook?

Go to the Excel workbook and select the desired range.Then switch to PowerPoint, select the desired chart, andclick the Establish Excel Link button in the contextmenu.

For a detailed description, refer to section ‘Changingand removing links’ on page 74. To learn how to insert achart directly from Excel, read section ‘Creating a chartfrom Excel’ on page 70.

Excel data links 79

My linked chart seems to ignore part of the Excel datarange. Why?

In addition to the main data, the linked range in Excelcontains some cells to the left and on top, which arereserved for category and series labels. If the selectedrange encloses only the main data, part of the data willbe interpreted as labels and will not show up in the chart.

If you are unsure about the required layout, simply inserta new chart of the desired type in PowerPoint and referto the layout of its data sheet.

For further information read section ‘Creating a chartfrom Excel’ on page 70.

Why is Excel slow when I have lots of linked dataranges?

Excel performance can be improved by disabling au-tomatic error checking. To do this select from Excel’sTools menu Options, click on the Error Checking tab anduncheck the Enable background error checking box.

I have a lot of Excel files to visualize with think-cell.Can I run think-cell in batch mode?

It is possible to program think-cell. think-cell offers afunction to create presentations from templates (see‘Programming think-cell’ on page 99).

14. More tools

This chapter explains various small features of think-cellthat can make life a lot easier.

Special characters

Experienced PowerPoint users find the built-in Insert →Symbol feature inconvenient for frequent use. With think-cell installed, there is a simpler way to insert specialcharacters:

Open the Special Characters dialog from the More menuin the think-cell toolbar.

You will find all the symbols you need on a single page,grouped by usage context. Now, with a single click ofthe mouse,

1. you select the desired character or symbol,

2. the character is inserted at the cursor location,

3. and the special characters dialog is dismissed imme-diately.

Note: If no shape or text label is selected, the think-cellspecial character dialog has no effect. If you have oneshape or text label selected, it will be switched to textediting mode.

Save and send selected slides

Sometimes it is useful to save parts of a set of slides.With think-cell you no longer need to duplicate the fileand then delete unwanted slides. Simply select the de-sired slides from the outline pane on the left or from theslide sorter view, click on More from the think-cell tool-bar and choose Save Selected Slides.... After the new fileis created, it is immediately opened for editing.

If you want to send the selected slides by e-mail, you canalso choose Send Selected Slides... and an e-mail tem-plate with attachment will be composed in your defaulte-mail application.

Changing the language

Setting the language correctly is crucial if you wish to usePowerPoint’s spell checker. think-cell adds extra optionsto let you change the language of the text in a slide or

More tools 81

in a complete presentation. These options can be foundin the Tools → Language... menu in PowerPoint 2003and earlier PowerPoint versions. The equivalent menuin PowerPoint 2007 is found by clicking the Languagemenu item in the Review tab.

Simply select the desired language in the dialog andclick either on Text on Slide to change the language ofall text on the current slide or on All Text to change thelanguage of all text in the presentation.

Changing fontsChanging the font of text within a large presentation canbe a lot of work. think-cell’s Replace Fonts... feature canbe used to greatly simplify the task. The feature can beaccessed in the Formatmenu of PowerPoint or the Editinggroup on the Home tab of the PowerPoint 2007 ribbon.It replaces PowerPoint’s Replace Fonts dialog. The dropdown boxes in the dialog can be used to select the fontto replace and the new font, and the font size can alsobe optionally adjusted. Select the scope for the changes(either Entire presentation, Current slide or Selection) andthen click Start to replace the fonts.

Automatic case codeYou can add a textbox to the master slide that alwaysshows the file name or, alternatively, file path of the pre-sentation. If the file name is the same as the case codeused to identify a project in your firm, you can use thistextbox to show the case code on each slide. The con-tent of the textbox is updated whenever the file is savedunder a different name.

To add a textbox that shows the case code, follow thesesteps:

1. Switch to the master slide view (menu View→ Master→ Slide Master).

2. Insert a new textbox and place it on the master slide.

3. In PowerPoint 2007

a) Right-click the textbox and open theSize and Position dialog.

b) Go to the Alt Text tab and find the input area forAlternative text.

In earlier PowerPoint versions

a) Open the Format Text Box dialog (double-clickthe textbox or select Format Text Box from the con-text menu).

b) Go to the Web tab and find the input area forAlternative text.

4. In the Alternative text input area, type

– casecode to have the filename automatically dis-played in the textbox;

– CASECODE to have the capitalized filename auto-matically displayed in the textbox;

– casepath to have the full file path automaticallydisplayed in the textbox;

– CASEPATH to have the capitalized full file path au-tomatically displayed in the textbox.

As soon as you save the file, the case code shows up onthe slides.

Note: The case code textbox only works on the masterslide, not on individual slides.

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think-cell round

When data is compiled for a report or PowerPoint pre-sentation, rounding summations in Excel is a frequentproblem. It is often desirable, but difficult to achieve, thatrounded totals exactly match the total of the roundedaddends. For example, consider the following table:

When the values are rounded to integers using Excel’sFormat-Cell feature, the following table results. Totalswhich appear to be “miscalculated” are in bold:

Similarly, when Excel’s standard rounding functions areused, totals of the rounded values are calculated cor-rectly but rounding errors accumulate and results of-ten deviate substantially from the actual totals of theoriginal values. The following table shows the result of=ROUND(x,0) for the example above. Totals that deviatefrom the original value by 1 or more are in bold:

Using think-cell round, you can achieve consistentlyrounded totals with minimal “cheating”: While most val-ues are rounded to the nearest integer, a few valuesare rounded in the opposite direction, thus maintain-ing correct calculations without accumulating roundingerror. Since there are many possibilities to achieve cor-rectly rounded totals by changing values, the softwarepicks a solution that requires the minimum number ofvalues changed and the minimum deviation from theprecise values. For example, rounding down 10.5 to 10is preferable over rounding down 3.7 to 3. The followingtable shows an optimal solution for the above example,with “cheated” values in bold:

To achieve this output in your own calculation, simplyselect the concerned range of Excel cells. Then, click thetoolbar button and, if necessary, adjust the rounding

precision using the toolbar’s dropdown box.

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Using think-cell round

think-cell round seamlessly integrates into MicrosoftExcel, providing a set of functions that are similar toExcel’s standard rounding functions. You can easilyapply these functions to your own data using thethink-cell round toolbar buttons.

In Excel 2007 the toolbars have been replaced by rib-bons. The think-cell round ribbon can be found in theFormulas tab.

Rounding parameters. Like the Excel functions, thethink-cell rounding functions take two parameters:

– x: The value that is to be rounded. This can be a con-stant, a formula or a reference to another cell.

– n: The rounding precision. The meaning of this pa-rameter depends on the function you use. The pa-rameters for the think-cell functions are the same asfor the equivalent Excel functions. Refer to the tablebelow for examples.

As in Excel, think-cell round can not only round to integervalues, but to any multiple. For example, if you want torepresent your data in 5-10-15-... steps, simply roundto multiples of five.

In Excel, you must use different functions, dependingon the desired rounding precision. Examples are theROUND and the MROUND functions, which interpret the

parameter n differently. Using the dropdown box in thethink-cell round toolbar, simply type in or select the de-sired rounding precision. think-cell round chooses theappropriate function and parameters for you.

The following table provides some examples of round-ing, using the toolbar, ROUND or MROUND togetherwith their specific n-parameter.

Toolbar 100 50 2 1 0.01

ROUND -2 - - 0 2

MROUND 100 50 2 1 -

1.018 0 0 2 1 1.02

17 0 0 18 17 17.00

54.6 100 50 55 54 54.60

1234.1234 1200 1250 1234 1234 1234.12

8776.54321 8800 8800 8776 8777 8776.54

If the values are not displayed the way you expect themto, verify that the Excel Cell Formatting is set to Generaland the columns are wide enough to display all decimalplaces.

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Button Formula Description

TCROUND(x, n)

Try rounding x to thenearest multiple of thedesired precision butcheat if needed.

TCROUNDUP(x, n) Always round x awayfrom zero, do not cheat.

TCROUNDDOWN(x, n) Always round x towardszero, do not cheat.

TCROUNDNEAR(x, n)

Always round x to thenearest multiple of thedesired precision, donot cheat.

Remove all think-cellround functions from theselected cells.

Select or type thedesired roundingmultiple.

Highlight all cells wherethink-cell round decidedto cheat instead ofrounding to nearest.

During calculation, aclock provides feedbackon the calculationprogress.

For optimal results with as little deviation from the un-derlying values as possible, you should use TCROUNDwherever possible. Only use the more restrictive func-tions TCROUNDDOWN, TCROUNDUP or TCROUNDNEARif you must.

Attention: You should never use nondeterministic func-tions like RAND() within any of the TCROUND formulas.If functions return a different value every time they areevaluated, think-cell round will make mistakes calculat-ing values.

Layout of the calculation. The rectangular layout of theexample above is only for sake of demonstration. Youcan use the TCROUND functions to determine the displayof arbitrary summations spread across your Excel sheet.Excel’s 3-D references to other sheets and links to otherfiles do also work.

Placement of TCROUND functions. Since TCROUNDfunctions are meant to control the output of a cell, theymust be the outermost function:

Bad: =TCROUND(A1, 1)+TCROUND( SUM(B1:E1), 1 )Good: =TCROUND( A1+SUM(B1:E1), 1 )

Bad: =3*TCROUNDDOWN(A1, 1)Good: =TCROUNDDOWN(3*A1, 1)

If you happen to enter something along the lines of thebad examples, think-cell round will notify you with theExcel error value “#VALUE!”.

Limitations of think-cell round

think-cell round always finds a solution for arbitrary sum-mations with subtotals and totals. think-cell round alsoprovides sensible solutions for some other calculationsinvolving multiplication and numerical functions. How-ever, for mathematical reasons, the existence of a con-sistently rounded solution cannot be guaranteed as soonas operators other than +, - and SUM are used.

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Multiplication with a constant. In many cases, think-cellround produces good results when constant multiplica-tion is involved, i.e., at most one of the coefficients isderived from the result of another TCROUND function.Consider the following example:

The precise calculation for cell C1 is 3*1.3+1.4=5.3.This result can be met by rounding up the value 1.4 to2:

However, think-cell round can only “cheat” by roundingup or rounding down. Further deviation from the originalvalues is not supported. Thus, for certain combinationsof input values, no consistently rounded solution can befound. In this case, the function TCROUND evaluates tothe Excel error value “#NUM!”. The following exampleillustrates an unsolvable problem:

The precise calculation for cell C1 is 6*1.3+1.4=9.2.Rounding cells A1 and B1 would result in 6*1+2=8 or6*2+1=13. The actual result 9.2 cannot be rounded to8 or 13, and the output from think-cell round looks likethis:

Note: The Excel function AVERAGE is interpreted by think-cell round as a combination of summation and constantmultiplication. Also, a summation where the same ad-dend appears more than once is mathematically equiv-

alent to a constant multiplication, and the existence ofa solution is not guaranteed.

General multiplication and other functions. As long asthe TCROUND functions are used for all relevant cellsand intermediate results are connected merely by +, -,SUM and AVERAGE, the addends as well as (intermedi-ate) totals are integrated into a single rounding prob-lem. In these cases, think-cell round will find a solutionthat provides consistency throughout all cells involved,if such a solution exists.

Since TCROUND is a normal Excel function, it can becombined with arbitrary functions and operators. Butwhen you use functions other than the ones mentionedabove to connect results from TCROUND statements,think-cell round cannot integrate the components intoone interconnected problem. Instead, the componentsof the formula will be taken as distinct problems whichwill be solved independently. The results will then beused as input to other formulas.

In many cases, the output from think-cell round will stillbe reasonable. There are cases, however, where the useof operators other than +, -, SUM and AVERAGE leadsto rounded results which are far off from the result of thenon-rounded calculation. Consider the following exam-ple:

In this case, the precise calculation for cell C1 wouldbe 8.6*1.7=14.62. Since cell A1 and cell B1 are con-nected by a multiplication, think-cell round cannot inte-grate the formulas from these cells into a common prob-lem. Instead, after detecting cell A1 as valid input, cellB1 is evaluated independently and the output is taken as

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a constant within the remaining problem. Since there areno further constraints, value 1.7 from cell B1 is roundedto the nearest integer, which is 2.

At this point, the “precise” calculation for cell C1 is8.6*2=17.2. This is the problem that think-cell roundnow tries to solve. There is a consistent solution whichrequires rounding up 17.2 to 18. The result looks likethis:

Note that the rounded value in cell C1, which is 18,greatly differs from the original value 14.62.

Troubleshooting TCROUND formulas

There are two possible error results you may comeacross when using think-cell round: “#VALUE!” and“#NUM!”.

#VALUE!. The “#VALUE!” error hints to syntacticalproblems, such as mistyped formulas or bad parame-ters. For example, the second parameter for TCROUNDmust be an integer value. Also, pay attention to usecorrect delimiters. For example, while in internationalExcel the formula looks like this: =TCROUND(1.7, 0),in a localized German version of Excel it must be writtenas: =TCROUND(1,7; 0)Another mistake specific to think-cell round is the place-ment of the TCROUND function call: You cannot use aTCROUND function within another formula. Please makesure that TCROUND is the outermost function of the cell’sformula. (see ‘Placement of TCROUND functions’ onpage 84)

#NUM!. The “#NUM!” error results from numericalproblems. When the output of a TCROUND function is“#NUM!”, this means that the problem as stated by thegiven set of formulas is mathematically unsolvable. (see‘Limitations of think-cell round’ on page 84)

As long as the formulas enclosed by TCROUND functionscontain merely +, - and SUM, and all TCROUND state-ments share the same precision (second parameter), asolution is guaranteed to exist and will be found by think-cell round. However, in the following cases there is noguarantee that a consistently rounded solution exists:

– Formulas involve other operations like multiplicationor numerical functions. Also, summations where thesame addend appears more than once are mathe-matically equivalent to a multiplication.

– You use different precisions in the second parameterof the TCROUND function.

– You make frequent use of the specific functionsTCROUNDDOWN, TCROUNDUP and TCROUNDNEAR.

You can try to restate the problem to get a consistentsolution. Try the following:

– Use a finer precision for some or all TCROUND state-ments.

– Do not use TCROUND with multiplication or numericalfunctions other than +, - and SUM.

– Use the same precision (second parameter) for allTCROUND statements.

– Use TCROUND instead of the more specific functionsTCROUNDDOWN, TCROUNDUP and TCROUNDNEARwherever possible.

Appendix

A. Deployment guide

This chapter describes how to deploy think-cell in alarger organization. If you want to install a personal copyof think-cell on your computer, please refer to ‘Installa-tion and update’ on page 9.

Workstation prerequisites

To install and run think-cell, the following software mustbe installed:

– Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7

– Microsoft Office 2000, XP, 2003 or 2007 with at leastthe following components:

– Microsoft Office Excel

– Microsoft Office PowerPoint

– Office XP and later: Visual Basic for Applications(from Office Shared Features)

– Microsoft Graph (from Office Tools)

The installation of think-cell requires about 20MB ofdisk space.

Windows XP or later and Office XP or later are shippedwith all necessary components to run think-cell software.

If you are running Windows2000, you need to add

– Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) 3.0. It is included inInternet Explorer 6.0 or later. To install it separatelyfrom Microsoft’s site, simply go to:

http://www.think-cell.com/msxml3

You will be forwarded to the relevant Microsoft webpage.

Windows XP ships with MSXML3.0. Note thatMSXML4.0 is not a replacement for 3.0, andthink-cell does not work with MSXML4.0.

– Microsoft Background Intelligent Transfer Service(BITS) Client Component. It is included in Win-dows 2000 Service Pack 3. To install it separatelyfrom Microsoft’s site, go to:

http://www.think-cell.com/bits

The Server Component of BITS is not required to runthink-cell.

Initial installationThe think-cell installation file setup.exe understands thesame commands as Windows’ msiexec command. To

http://www.think-cell.com/msxml3

http://www.think-cell.com/bits

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start setup.exe from a script, e.g., when using remotemaintenance software to install think-cell, use

setup /qn TARGETDIR="c:∖Program Files∖ ↣think-cell"

All parameters are optional. The /qn option suppressesthe Windows Installer user interface and TARGETDIR setsthe destination folder. For English versions of Windows,if the installing user has local administrator privileges,the default folder is

C:∖Program Files∖think-cell

If the installing user has no administrator privileges, theinstallation is performed only for the installing user, andby default think-cell is installed into the folder


or, for Windows Vista and 7:


For localized versions of Windows, the corresponding,differently named folders are used.

A license key can also be specified during installation.Simply add the following option to the command line,replacing xxxxx with your think-cell license key:

LICENSEKEY=xxxxxYou can further append the ALLUSERS option to overridethe default installation mode:

ALLUSERS=1 Force installation for all users. This will failif called without local administrator privileges.

ALLUSERS=2 Automatic mode (default): If called withsufficient privileges, the software is installed for all

users. Otherwise, the setup falls back to a single-userinstallation.

ALLUSERS="" (two successive double-quotes withoutspace in between) Force single-user installation. Thisoverrides the automatic mode for users that haveadministrator privileges.

Note: See ‘Ribbon in Office 2007’ on page 91, ‘Up-dates’ on page 93 and ‘Online quality assurance’ onpage 94 for details of additional options that may bespecified on the installation command line.

Note: All of these parameters apply to the setup.msi aswell as the setup.exe.

Installed files

The following files are required for think-cell and arecreated in the installation directory:

– tcaddin.dll (< 14MB)

– 1024/manual.pdf (< 2MB)

– 1032/manual.pdf (< 2MB)

– custom.xml (< 200KB)

– sla.rtf (ca. 100KB)

– splash.bmp (ca. 100KB)

– Microsoft.VC90.OpenMP.manifest (ca. 1 KB)

– vcomp90.dll (ca. 53 KB)

– tcdiag.exe (< 700KB)

– tcdotnet.dll (ca. 8 KB)

– tcmail.exe (< 600KB)

The think-cell installation does not write to folders otherthan the chosen installation folder.

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While using think-cell additional files are written to thefollowing folders:

C:∖Documents and Settings∖[user]∖ ↣Application Data∖think-cell


Windows Vista and 7:

C:∖Users∖[user]∖AppData∖Roaming∖think-cell


Registry entries

To interact with Microsoft PowerPoint and MicrosoftExcel, the installation of think-cell creates some newkeys in the following sections of the Windows registry.Depending on whether you have a regular installationor a single-user-installation, the keys are created in theHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER sec-tion (the Wow6432Node component denoted in bracketsis only present on 64-bit versions of Windows):

– ∖Software∖Classes∖[Wow6432Node∖]CLSID∖ ↣{3EAB3858-A0E0-4A3B-A405-F4D525E85265}

– ∖Software∖Classes∖[Wow6432Node∖]CLSID∖ ↣{D52B1FA2-1EF8-4035-9DA6-8AD0F40267A1}

– ∖Software∖Classes∖[Wow6432Node∖] ↣thinkcell.addin

– ∖Software∖Classes∖[Wow6432Node∖] ↣thinkcell.addin.1

– ∖Software∖Classes∖[Wow6432Node∖] ↣TCLayout.ActiveDocument

– ∖Software∖Classes∖[Wow6432Node∖] ↣TCLayout.ActiveDocument.1

– ∖Software∖[Wow6432Node∖]Microsoft∖Office∖ ↣PowerPoint∖Addins∖thinkcell.addin

– ∖Software∖[Wow6432Node∖]Microsoft∖Office∖ ↣Excel∖Addins∖thinkcell.addin

In case of a regular installation, the license key and thesettings for online quality assurance and automatic up-dates are saved in the following section of the windowsregistry:

– HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE∖SOFTWARE∖[Wow6432Node∖] ↣Classes∖Software∖think-cell

In case of a single-user installation, the above informa-tion are stored here:

– HKEY_CURRENT_USER∖SOFTWARE∖[Wow6432Node∖] ↣Classes∖Software∖think-cell

If group policies are used in your network, think-cell mayalso use:

– HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE∖SOFTWARE∖Policies∖ ↣think-cell

– HKEY_CURRENT_USER∖SOFTWARE∖Policies∖ ↣think-cell

think-cell uses no other sections of the Windows registry.

Group Policies

think-cell supports Windows’ group policies to centrallycontrol think-cell’s behavior for a group of users or on agroup of machines. To use group policies, you need tocreate a group policy object and link it to a site, domainor organizational unit using the Group Policy Manage-ment Console.

The following explanation requires an understandingand working knowledge of group policy concepts and

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administration. For general information on Windowsgroup policy concepts and details of their usage andupdate mechanisms refer to the contents of the onlinehelp of the Group Policy Management Console.

think-cell’s specific configuration options are describedin the think-cell.adm administrative template file,which is located in the directory where think-cell hasbeen installed. In the Group Policy Object Editor useAdd/Remove Templates... under Action to add the optionsin think-cell.adm. A new node think-cell is addedto the node Administrative Templates in the followingtwo places: the think-cell settings configured underComputer Configuration determine registry entries at

– HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE∖SOFTWARE∖Policies∖ ↣think-cell

and the think-cell settings configured underUser Configuration determine registry entries at

– HKEY_CURRENT_USER∖SOFTWARE∖Policies∖ ↣think-cell

If settings are enabled at both places, those underComputer Configuration take precedence.

The items of the node think-cell show the available set-tings that can be controlled with group policies. Eachitem has a description with the available values for thisitem.

You can use group policies to activate or deactivatethink-cell for a group of individual users. For instance,if you deploy think-cell on a terminal server you need tomake sure that only the licensed users have access tothink-cell. When used in the following way, group poli-cies offer a convenient method to do so:

1. Set up one group policy object which disables think-cell completely and link it to your domain. Use theProduct Restriction setting of the administrative tem-plate think-cell with the appropriate value.

2. Add another group policy object which activates thesoftware for the licensed users. This should also belinked to your domain and be applied after the dis-abling one. Because group policy objects are appliedin reverse order the enabling object should be furtherup in the list in Group Policy Management Console.

3. In the section Security Filtering of the Group PolicyManagement Console restrict access to the enablinggroup policy object explicitly to the licensed users ofthink-cell.

Another convenient use for group policies is the cen-tralized management and distribution of the think-celllicense key to the think-cell users in your company. Thelicense key is one of the settings of the administrativetemplate think-cell.

Ribbon in Office 2007

The think-cell toolbar in Office 2007 is implementedas a ribbon group. The default position for thethink-cell group in PowerPoint 2007 is in the Inserttab (TabInsert), after the Insert Illustrations group(GroupInsertIllustrations); the default positionin Excel 2007 is after the Insert Excel Charts group(GroupInsertChartsExcel) in the Insert tab.Detailed information about customizing theOffice 2007ribbon is available from:

http://www.think-cell.com/ribbon

http://www.think-cell.com/ribbon

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The following properties may be specified during instal-lation to customize the think-cell group within PowerPoint2007:

RIBBONPPTABINSERT Specify XML attributes for the tabelement containing the think-cell group.

RIBBONPPGROUPINSERT Specify XML attributes for thethink-cell group element.

RIBBONPPXMLNS Specify additional XML namespace at-tributes for the customUI element.

Note: All of these parameters apply to the setup.msi aswell as the setup.exe.

If no id, idMso or idQ attribute is specified using theRIBBONPPTABINSERT property then the think-cell groupwill be placed in the Insert tab. Similarly, if no id or idQattribute is specified using the RIBBONPPGROUPINSERTproperty then a unique local id for the think-cell groupwill be automatically generated. Additionally, if no labelis specified using the RIBBONPPGROUPINSERT propertythen the label think-cell will be used.Adding the following option to the setup command line,for example, will place the think-cell group in a new,user-defined tab, positioned after the built-in Home tab:

RIBBONPPTABINSERT="id=""TabNew"" label=""My New Tab"" insertAfterMso=""TabHome"""

Note: Any quote characters in the XML snippets mustbe double-quoted when specifying the properties on thesetup command line.

Alternatively, adding the following options to the setupcommand line will place the think-cell group in the built-in Home tab after the Font group and label the group:

RIBBONPPTABINSERT="idMso=""TabHome"""

RIBBONPPGROUPINSERT="insertAfterMso=""GroupFont"" label=""think-cell"""

The idQ attribute can be used to specify qualified iden-tifiers for both the think-cell group and tab. Any names-paces required for the qualified identifiers can be spec-ified using the RIBBONPPXMLNS property.For example, adding the following two options to thesetup command line will place the think-cell group in auser-defined tab TabUser, qualified using the names-pace http://example.com/ribbon, and positionedbefore the Insert tab :

RIBBONPPXMLNS="xmlns:ribbon=""http://example.com/ribbon"""

RIBBONPPTABINSERT="idQ=""ribbon:TabUser""label=""My User Tab""insertBeforeMso=""TabInsert"""

Qualified identifiers can be useful when several add-insor templates wish to customize the PowerPoint 2007 rib-bon. If several add-ins, for example, specify a tab usingthe same qualified identifier then a single user-definedtab will be created and each of the add-ins can posi-tion groups within this common user-defined tab. Spec-ifying a qualified identifier for the think-cell group letsother add-ins or templates position groups relative tothe group. Similarly, the think-cell group can use qual-ified identifiers to position itself relative to the groupsof other add-ins or templates. For example, the follow-ing options specify a qualified identifier for the think-cellgroup and positions it relative to a user-defined group:

RIBBONPPXMLNS="xmlns:ribbon=""http://example.com/ribbon""xmlns:special=""http://example.com/special"""

Deployment guide 93

RIBBONPPGROUPINSERT="idQ=""ribbon:GroupThinkCell""insertAfterQ=""special:GroupSpecial"""

It is important to note that the order in which add-ins ortemplates are loaded may influence the customization ofthe PowerPoint 2007 ribbon. If, in the example above,the add-in that creates the special:GroupSpecialgroup is loaded after the think-cell add-in then position-ing relative to the special:GroupSpecial will haveno effect. The order of loading cannot always be con-trolled and it is recommended that pairs of user-definedgroups requiring relative positioning should both posi-tion themselves relative to the other. This should ensurethat whichever group is loaded last will position itselfcorrectly relative to the other. In the above example,the XML code for the special:GroupSpecial groupshould contain an insertBeforeQ attribute that refer-ences the think-cell group’s qualified identifier.

The think-cell group in Excel 2007 can be simi-larly customized using the RIBBONXLTABINSERT,RIBBONXLGROUPINSERT and RIBBONXLXMLNS proper-ties.

Updates

think-cell has built-in automatic update support. If au-tomatic updates are enabled and PowerPoint is started,the software checks whether a new version is available.The user then has the option to either accept or delaythe update. If you would prefer to have this feature de-activated please contact us.

To download the update file, think-cell uses theMicrosoftBackground Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). BITS au-tomatically frees bandwidth when the user needs it, and

hence does not interfere with dial-up connections. It alsorecovers gracefully from network interruptions commonin mobile computing environments. Before any down-loaded code is executed, the integrity of the files is ver-ified by checking think-cell’s digital signature. Each up-date is approximately 9MB in size.

While you are evaluating the product, updates are usu-ally hosted on think-cell’s web server. When you roll outthink-cell in your organization, you have the option tohost updates within your intranet. To do so, you needa web server such as Apache or Microsoft Internet In-formation Server (IIS) that all think-cell users within yourorganization have access to. This web server must sup-port file downloads using HTTP/1.1. Both Apache 1.2and later and IIS 4.0 and later have this feature. Thefollowing files must be placed on the web server hostingyour updates:

– An XML text file, typically called update.xml, that con-trols the update process. See below for a descriptionof the update XML file format.

– One or more setup_<version>.exe installer files,supplied by think-cell.

After placing the necessary files on the server, think-cellmust be installed with the UPDATESURL command lineoption specifying the location of the update XML file (see‘Initial installation’ on page 88), e.g.

UPDATESURL="http://example.com/update.xml"

The update XML file must contain a list of scenarios,with each scenario consisting of a set of conditions andthe corresponding URL of a setup file. The first scenariowhose conditions are met determines the file that thecomputer will download and install. By applying con-

Deployment guide 94

ditions such as a list of machine or user names, differ-ent users can receive different updates. For example,new program versions can first be distributed to a smallgroup of pilot users before they are rolled out in thewhole organization.

Figure A.1 (page 96) shows a typical example of anupdate XML file. Conditions within the file are writtenin Windows Management Instrumentation Query Lan-guage (WQL), which gives access to all relevant systemparameters. To learn more about WQL, go to:

http://www.think-cell.com/wql

If you are interested in authoring your ownWQL queries,it helps to install the Microsoft WMI Tools, which areavailable from:

http://www.think-cell.com/wmitools

The WMI Object Browser gives you an overview of allyour system’s properties accessible through WQL. TheWMI CIM Studio lets you test WQL queries that you de-velop for update.xml by pressing this button:

Starting PowerPoint with think-cell enabledor disabledAfter think-cell is installed, it is enabled in PowerPoint. Ifthe user chooses to disable think-cell, it will stay disabledat the next start of PowerPoint. Optionally, you can setthe environment variable TCACTIVE to explicitly enableor disable think-cell before starting PowerPoint.

You can create two batch files that serve as direct linksto PowerPoint with think-cell enabled resp. disabled:

1. Go to the Office directory. Depending on the versionof Office you have installed, the default installationdirectory is

C:∖Program Files∖Microsoft Office∖Officeor C:∖Program Files∖Microsoft Office∖Office10or C:∖Program Files∖Microsoft Office∖Office11

2. Create a new text document (right-click → New →Text Document).

3. Put in the following lines:set tcactive=1start powerpnt.exe(If you want think-cell to be disabled, put in 0 insteadof 1.)

4. Rename the created file to end in .bat. Ignore thewarning about changing the file name extension.

5. Create a shortcut pointing to this file (right-click ondesktop→ New→ Shortcut).

Now start PowerPoint through this shortcut for think-cellto be initially enabled resp. disabled.

Online quality assurance

At think-cell, we are committed to stability and robust-ness as key factors for the professional use of our soft-ware. When an error condition arises while you are us-ing think-cell, the software automatically generates a re-port that helps us to understand the problem and fix itin the next release.

An automatically created report contains the followinginformation:

– date and time,

– your customization id (a three-digit number that is thesame for all users within a corporate unit; can also befound in the About dialog),

http://www.think-cell.com/wql

http://www.think-cell.com/wmitools

Deployment guide 95

– the program build (a five-digit number; can also befound in the About dialog),

– an error code from the operating system or fromPowerPoint or Excel,

– the location in our source code (file name and linenumber) where the error occurred,

– a MicrosoftMinidump, which is basically a stack tracealong with environment information such as operat-ing system version and loaded modules. Microsoftuses the same Minidump when they send error re-ports,

– if desired, the machine name or its serial number, al-lowing your IT personnel to identify the concerningmachine or user. We may get valuable additional in-formation if we can talk to the user who experiencedthe problem.

The error report is sent via HTTPS to the think-cell server.Of all the information transmitted, only the Minidump,essentially memory content, could potentially containactual slide content fragments. But in its operation,think-cell never stores actual slide content. Storing textor images is completely left to PowerPoint. Thereforeit is very unlikely that the Minidump of the memoryused by think-cell contains any sensitive information. Infact, after having evaluated thousands of error reportsduring the development of think-cell, we never cameacross a piece of slide text.

You can test the error reporting mechanism by typingerrorreporttest into any textbox within PowerPoint.A message box confirms that an error report has beensent.

If automatic error reporting is disabled for your firm’sversion of think-cell, it can be temporarily enabledby typing senderrorshome into any textbox withinPowerPoint. Our support staff may ask you to do so ifsome problem cannot be reproduced in our laboratory.Again, a message box confirms that automatic errorreporting is now enabled until PowerPoint is closed.

Automatic error reporting can also be enabled or dis-abled by appending one of the following REPORTS op-tions to the installation command line (see ‘Initial instal-lation’ on page 88):

REPORTS=0 Disable automatic error reporting.REPORTS=1 Enable automatic error reporting.

Trouble shooting and critical errors

In case of critical errors the user is asked whether he orshe would like to file a support request.

These support requests can also be sent manually (‘Trou-ble shooting’ on page 11). It is possible to change thedefault e-mail address for support requests. Append thefollowing parameter to the installation command line(see ‘Initial installation’ on page 88):

SUPPORTEMAIL="[email protected]"

Deployment guide 96

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <root><CUpdateInfo id="1">

<m_vecupdscen length="2"><elem>

<m_bstrFile val="http://example.com/setup_1.13.160.0.exe"/><m_vecupdcond length="2">

<elem>

<m_bstrQuery val="select * from Win32_Product where (Name='think-cell® chart' or wName='think-cell') and Version<'1.13.160.0'"/>



<m_eupdcondop val="0"/><m_nCount val="1"/>

</elem><elem>



<m_bstrQuery val="select * from Win32_ComputerSystem where Name='ERIKA' or Name='HANS' or wName='FRITZ'"/>

<m_eupdcondop val="0"/><m_nCount val="1"/>

</elem></m_vecupdcond>

</elem><elem>

<m_bstrFile val="http://example.com/setup_1.13.098.0.exe"/><m_vecupdcond length="1">

<elem><m_bstrQuery val="select * from Win32_Product where (Name='think-cell® chart' or w

Name='think-cell') and Version<'1.13.098.0'"/><m_eupdcondop val="0"/><m_nCount val="1"/>

</elem></m_vecupdcond>

</elem></m_vecupdscen>

</CUpdateInfo></root>

Figure A.1 Example of an update.xml file

B. Exchanging files with PowerPoint

This chapter covers some issues that arise when yourcoworkers use PowerPoint without think-cell installed.

Loading files from think-cell in PowerPointAny files created by PowerPoint with think-cell installedare 100% compatible with PowerPoint. This means thatcoworkers or customers who do not have think-cell in-stalled, can open and edit the files without noticing anydifference. The smart-elements (“think-cell shapes”) cre-ated with think-cell appear as regular PowerPoint shapessuch as textboxes and Microsoft Graph objects.

Although think-cell requires PowerPoint 2000 or later torun, files that have been created using think-cell can beopened in PowerPoint 97 Service Release 1. If rows ofquotation marks appear in some textboxes, then ServiceRelease 1 or later must be installed. Find the latest up-dates for Microsoft Office installations at:

http://office.microsoft.com/officeupdate

Reimporting smart-elements fromPowerPointConsider the following scenario:

1. A presentation has been created using PowerPointwith think-cell installed, and contains smart-elements.

2. The same presentation has been edited in PowerPointwithout think-cell, and some of the shapes that arepart of a smart-element have been altered.

3. Now, you want to use think-cell again to further mod-ify the smart-elements.

In this scenario, when you attempt to select a smart-element that has been altered without think-cell, the soft-ware will recognize the smart-element as inconsistentand display the following message box:

http://office.microsoft.com/officeupdate

Exchanging files with PowerPoint 98

In order to proceed, you will need to decide whetherto continue using the PowerPoint edited version withoutthink-cell functionality or to reimport the smart-elementto think-cell.

You should carefully consider the following conse-quences before making your decision:

– Manually carry over changes to think-cell : Reimportingthe smart-element to think-cell restores the intelligentsmart-element functionality, but discards all changesmade without think-cell. If you wish to preserve any ofthe changes then they must be manually re-appliedto the smart-element.

– Continue editing without think-cell functionality : Con-tinuing to use the PowerPoint edited version ensuresthat all changes are preserved. The intelligent smart-element functionality, however, is lost and standardPowerPoint tools must be used to further edit theseshapes and objects.

If you decide to Manually carry over changes to think-cell,then the following toolbar is displayed, letting you com-

pare slides containing the alternative versions of thesmart-element:

The toolbar lets you quickly and easily view the slidescontaining the PowerPoint and think-cell versions of thesmart-element.

You may want to compare the smart-element with thePowerPoint version and compare and copy, for exam-ple, data values to reflect any changes that you wish topreserve in the think-cell version.

Having made any necessary changes, click the Donebutton to remove the PowerPoint version from the pre-sentation and end the reimport process.

C. Programming think-cell

Some functions of think-cell can be accessed program-matically. The interface is integrated into the Office Au-tomation model, so it can be accessed from any lan-guage with which you can program Office, such as Vi-sual Basic for Applications or C#. All samples in thischapter are written in Visual Basic for Applications, butcan be easily ported to other languages.

The entry point into think-cell is the think-cell add-in object. It can be accessed via theApplication.COMAddIns collection. Calls intothink-cell are always late-bound. See Microsoft’sknowledge base for an explanation:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245115

Thus, the type of the think-cell add-in object is simplyObject, and there is no type library or reference to add.Just acquire the object, and you are ready to make calls:Dim tcaddin As ObjectSet tcaddin = _

Application.COMAddIns("thinkcell.addin").Object

The following sections describe the available function-ality.

PresentationFromTemplate

Signature

tcaddin.PresentationFromTemplate( _wb As Excel.Workbook , _strTemplate As String, _ppapp As PowerPoint.Application _

) As PowerPoint.Presentation

Description

This function applies any data links in wb to the tem-plate with filename strTemplate. The result is a newpresentation within the PowerPoint instance ppapp.strTemplate can either be a full path or a relative path,which is then taken to be relative to the location of theExcel workbook file wb.All charts in strTemplate that are linked to the Excelworkbook wb are updated (regardless whether they areset to auto-update or not). Then their data links are bro-ken to prevent further changes to these charts.

Charts in strTemplate which are linked to Excel work-books other than wb are left unchanged and still linked,so it is possible to update links from multiple Excel work-books by saving the result of this function as a new tem-

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245115

Programming think-cell 100

plate and then calling this function again with the nextworkbook.

If you want to control the colors of chart segmentswith the Excel link, you can set the color scheme toUse Excel Fill (see ‘Color scheme’ on page 23). Like-wise, to control the number format with the Excel link,set it to Excel Format (see ‘Number format’ on page 32).Make sure to set the background color and the num-ber format of the respective cells in Excel before callingPresentationFromTemplate.

Example' To use this sample , go to Tools - References' and add the Microsoft PowerPoint Object Library.

Sub PresentationFromTemplate_Sample()' Get the range to modify. It is more efficient' to do this once rather than within the loop.Dim rng As Excel.RangeSet rng = _

ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 1)

' Get the think -cell add-in objectDim tcaddin As ObjectSet tcaddin = _

Application.COMAddIns("thinkcell.addin").Object

' Get a PowerPoint instance. Hold on to this' object as long as you want to access the' generated presentations. There can only be a' single PowerPoint instance. If there is no' PowerPoint running , one will be started.' Otherwise the existing one is used.Dim ppapp As ObjectSet ppapp = New PowerPoint.Application

Dim i As IntegerFor i = 1 To 10

' Modify the range value.' Note: Avoid selecting the cell prior to' changing it. It is very slow and has' undesirable side-effects.' BAD:' rng.Select' ActiveWindow.Selection.Value = 0

rng.Value = i

' Generate a new presentation based on the' linked template.Dim pres As PowerPoint.PresentationSet pres = tcaddin.PresentationFromTemplate( _

Excel.ActiveWorkbook , "template.ppt", ppapp)

' If you want to modify the new presentation' before saving it this is the place to do it.

' Save the new presentationpres.SaveAs "c:\\output" & i & ".ppt"

' Explicitly close the presentation when we' are done with it to free its memory.' Letting the object go out of scope is not' sufficient.pres.Close

NextEnd Sub

D. Keyboard shortcuts

Most keyboard shortcuts that you know from plainPowerPoint work with smart-elements as well. Thesame is true for keys that modify mouse operationlike

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duplication of shapes.

The following table shows the keyboard shortcuts fre-quently used with think-cell, and the ones that offer ad-ditional functionality over Microsoft PowerPoint.

Shortcut key Description�

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�F2 Toggle text-edit mode in text labels

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�Delete or

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�↢ 1. Delete the selected smart-element

2. Remove the selected feature (e. g., label)

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1. Move focus across shapes on the slide2. Move focus across features (e. g., labels) ofa smart-element

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�Insert Gantt chart only: Insert new activity

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�x Checkbox only: set state

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�4 Harvey ball only: set state

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�Enter In Excel data sheet: line break

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�F7 In Excel data sheet: spell checking

Middle mouse button:click and drag In zoom view: Grab the slide and pan it around

Index

100% chart, 36– 100% indicator, 47100% cost curve, 52

activity (Gantt chart), 62Apache webserver, see update serverAPI– overview, 99– PresentationFromTemplate, 99application programming interface, see APIarea 100% chart, 38area chart, 38arithmetic mean, see value linearrow– CAGR, 45– difference, 44automatic update, 11average line, see value lineaxis, see value axis, see secondary axis

Background Intelligent Transfer Service, see BITSbar (Gantt chart), 65bar chart, see column chart– 100%, see 100% chart– clustered, see clustered chartbaseline break, 44BITS, 88bracket (Gantt chart), 65break

– baseline, 44– category axis, 44– value axis, 40bridge chart, see waterfall chartbubble chart, 55, 57butterfly chart, 35

CAGR, 45– for series, 46case code, 81case path, 81category axis break, 44category difference arrow, 45changing fonts, 81changing the language, 80checkbox, 64Chinese conversion, 28clustered chart, 35clustered stacked chart, 35color control, 23color scheme control, 23column– break between, 44– break within, 40– gap between, 43column chart, 35– 100%, see 100% chart– clustered, see clustered chart– insertion, 13

102

Index 103

– label content, 33– simple, 35– stacked, 35– waterfall, 49combination chart, 38comparable scales, see same scalecompatibility, 97connector– column/bar, 47– series, 47– universal, 47– waterfall, 50controls, see property controlscrosses at categories, 40crosses between categories, 40customization, 25

data links, see Exceldata links dialog, 73data sheet, 16– and text, 31– data entry, 26– flip columns, 28– flip rows, 28– reverse data order, 28– transpose, 27– waterfall, 49date format control, 68decoration– 100% indicator, 47– CAGR, 45– category axis break, 44– difference arrow, 44– series connector, 47– universal connector, 47– value axis, 39– value axis break, 40– value line, 46default colors, 25deployment, 88– batch file, 94

– installation, 88– online quality assurance, 94– prerequisites, 88– update scripting, 93difference arrow, 44– category, 45– segment, 44double prime, see primes in numbers

enable/disable on start, 94error bars, 37error reporting, 12, 94Excel– chart data entry, 26– create chart from, 70– data links, 70– group and outline, 76– hidden cells, 76– rounding, see think-cell round– transpose linked data, 71– update data link, 71

feature– layout settings, 17– remove, 21– selection, 17, 21file name, see case codefiles, 89flip columns, see data sheetflip rows, see data sheetfont control, 32Frequently Asked Questions, see trouble shooting

Gantt chart, see project timelinegap, 43group policies, 90growth arrow, see difference arrow

Harvey ball, 64

identifier, see case codeinsert symbol, see special characters

Index 104

inside label, 30installation, 9, 88– default directory, 9, 89– download, 9– files, see files– firm-wide, see deployment– first steps, 9– group policies, see group policies– parameters– – ALLUSERS, 89– – LICENSEKEY, 89– – REPORTS, 95– – RIBBONPPGROUPINSERT, 92– – RIBBONPPTABINSERT, 92– – RIBBONPPXMLNS, 92– – RIBBONXLGROUPINSERT, 92– – RIBBONXLTABINSERT, 92– – RIBBONXLXMLNS, 92– – TARGETDIR, 89– – UPDATESURL, 93– registry, see registry– requirements, 9– ribbon, see ribbon– trouble shooting, 11Internet Information Server (IIS), see update serverinterpolate, 38invalid license key, see license key

keyboard shortcuts, see shortcut keys

label, 15, 29– adding text, 31– automatic placement, 30– content, 33– context menu buttons, 29– font, 32– inside, 30– manual placement, 30– number format, 32– paste multi-selection, 33– segment, 30– selection, 21

– types of labels, 29label content control, 33language dependency, 69legend, 48license key, 10line chart, 36line color, 24line scheme control, 24line style control, 24

macros– security warning, 10magnitude, 33marimekko chart, 52– ridge, 53– with %-axis, 52– with units, 53marker scheme control, 24marker shape control, 24mekko, see marimekko chartMicrosoft OLE, 76milestone (Gantt chart), 65msiexec, 89MSXML 3.0, 88Multi-selection, 22, 33

#NUM! Excel error value, 86number format control, 32

Object Linking and Embedding, see Microsoft OLEOffice 97, see PowerPoint 97online quality assurance, 12, 94outlines, 24

panning, 22partition, 58percent of datasheet 100%=, 51pie chart, 54PowerPoint files, 97PowerPoint 97, 97precision control, see number format controlprimes in numbers, 33

Index 105

programming think-cell, see APIproject timeline, 59property controls, 32– color, 23– color scheme, 23– font, 32– label content, 33– line scheme, 24– line style, 24– marker scheme, 24– marker shape, 24– number format, 32

quality assurance, 12

registry, 90reverse data order, see data sheetribbon, 91ridge, 53rotation, 20rounding– addends and totals, see think-cell round– numbers in charts, see number format controlrow (Gantt chart), 62

same scale, 42save and send selected slides, 80scale (Gantt chart), 60scale (numeric), see value axisscatter chart, 55, 56scatter chart with lines, see line chartsecondary axis, 42security– encrypted error reporting, 12, 94– security warning at first start, 10– signed executables, 11segment difference arrow, 44selecting, 21selection of multiple features, see Multi-selectionseries– CAGR, 46setup, see installation

setup.exe, see msiexecshade (Gantt chart), 65shortcut keys– navigation, 22– overview, 101Simplified Chinese, 28single prime, see primes in numberssmart-elements– resizing, 20smoothed lines, 37snapping, 14special characters, 80stacked clustered chart, 35submarine chart, 53support– automatic update, 11– online quality assurance, 12– trouble shooting, 11symbols, see special characters

TCACTIVE environment variable, 94TCROUND Excel formula, 84TCROUNDDOWN Excel formula, 84TCROUNDNEAR Excel formula, 84TCROUNDUP Excel formula, 84text field, 31– label content, 33– number format, 32think-cell ribbon, 19think-cell round, 82think-cell toolbar, 19tickmarks, 39timeline chart, see project timelinetoolbar, 13, 23toolbar controls, see property controlsTraditional Chinese, 28trendline, 57trouble shooting, 11

update– automatic, 11– scripting, see deployment

Index 106

update server, 93update.xml, 93

value axis, 39– break, 40– crossing behavior, 40– gridlines, 40– same scale, 42– tickmark labels, 40– tickmarks, 40– title, 40#VALUE! Excel error value, 86value line, 46variable, see text fieldvisual basic, see API

waterfall– chart, 49– connector, 50weighted mean, see value line

XML Parser, see MSXML 3.0

y-axis, see value axis

zoom– panning, 22