Excel 2007 chart hatching?
For some reason, Microsoft stripped hatching support from Excel 2007 (and Mac’s Excel 2008). You can no longer use “pattern fill” but only “picture fill.”
There are a solutions regarding using the object model floating around the web, but one easy way I figured was to actually draw a vertically-hatched pattern in a painting program and then use IT as the “picture fill.”
Directions?
1.) Save the four (they are four separate) pictures below (or, more easily, the zip file) to your hard drive. Unzip/save somewhere you’ll remember.
2.) In Excel, create your chart; then right click on the bar/area you want filled with the hatching and click “format data point.”
3.) Click on “Fill,” then “Picture or texture fill,” then “Insert from… File.” Navigate to your file. Click on it.
4.) Voila, simple, easy, hatching.




Which idiot or group of idiots at Excel are responsible for removing the hatch option. Hatching is an essential representation of graphics used in academic papers and other media that reproduces non-coloured graphics!
Idiots!!!