[AccessD] Fancy graphs from Access

Dan Waters df.waters at outlook.com
Thu Feb 5 05:52:25 CST 2015


Hi Doug,

I agree - making graphs in Access was a 'challenge'.  But once done they
looked great and never failed!  They looked as good as a chart made in
Excel, so appearance wasn't a decision factor.

I did not try to create charts in Excel  because sending data over to Excel
from Access and then writing code to create a chart a using automation from
Access is another tangle.  So now I have a few charts made in Access and use
those as a starting point for any new charts - saves a lot of time.  So now
with 'template' charts done, making charts in Access isn't difficult or
time-consuming.  

My experience in trying to charge a company for my time is the same as yours
- painful!  Managers in companies don't see money the same way people do
with their own money.  It's just a matter of getting it into the budget -
which can be painful for them.  Once it's in the budget then you're all set!
This is the basis for why companies want to charge subscriptions - if you
agree to spend $X/mo, then it's already in your budget and you see it as
less painful than buying it all at once.

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Doug Steele
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 23:21 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Fancy graphs from Access

Bill: do you have any experience with DashboardBuilder?

Dan: my experience with graphing in Access (only in A2003, mind) was
comparable to doing my own dental work with a pair of pliers and a hammer.
Both of them bent and rusty :)

The options - Access, Excel, outside software, that have been suggested,
bring up an interesting thought.  I worked for this client as a full time
employee for several years until I moved away.  If I had spent three days in
the office logging my time as 'research', nobody would have complained.
But if I now try to research their request with an invoice for 24 hours at
my standard billing rate, the proverbial s*** would hit the fan.

Doug

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 8:26 PM, Darryl Collins <
darryl at whittleconsulting.com.au> wrote:

> I tend to vote with Bill on this one.  Let each bit of kit stick to 
> its strengths.  Excel is a lousy database and Access makes a poor 
> charting platform.
>
> Why not just push the necessary data into Excel and make the charts 
> there?  You can even link Excel into Access if you want, although this 
> brings with it some other issues that a stand-alone solution avoids.
>
> Horses for course yada yada.
>
> Cheers
> Darryl.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:
> accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Bill Benson
> Sent: Thursday, 5 February 2015 3:14 PM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Fancy graphs from Access
>
> curious, why should people reinvent a wheel that third party sw seems 
> to have reasonably covered? Does the 3rd party sw cost too much or 
> fail to deliver? I hate tedium. If I could avoid it for non-specific 
> crap like charting and dashboards I would certainly look into it, 
> especially for commercial stuff where someone else is willing to foot 
> the bill. They will pay a lot for my time to develop based on my 
> billing rate and learning curve.
> On Feb 4, 2015 5:52 PM, "Dan Waters" <df.waters at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Doug,
> >
> > You can make a variety of good-looking charts in Access.  This looks 
> > like a good place to start:
> > http://www.functionx.com/access/Lesson32.htm
> >
> > However, you may have to give up on pie charts.  The reason is that 
> > the leader lines for each section of the pie end up on top of each 
> > other, and they cannot be relocated in code (every pie chart I ever 
> > made in Excel needed to have the leader lines manually located to be 
> > viewable).  I guess if you turn the leaders off (if possible), then 
> > you can just use the legend to show which pie section is for what.
> >
> > I've made some interesting charts in Access.  It's tedious, and you 
> > sometimes have to do some magic with queries, but hopefully your
customer
> > will like them.   Expect to put some hours into developing each chart,
> and
> > charge accordingly.
> >
> > Good Luck!
> > Dan
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Doug 
> > Steele
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 16:30 PM
> > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> > Subject: [AccessD] Fancy graphs from Access
> >
> > I've just had a client ask how he can print some fancy formatted pie 
> > charts and graphs from an Access database.  I don't have a clue - 
> > can anyone suggest a work flow that he can use?  I can always build 
> > a query to get the data out to Excel or ???, but from that point 
> > onward I
> have no experience.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Doug
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