EXCEL CHARTS & TABLES
For Charts:
1. When you create your chart, create it as an object on a sheet, rather than as a new sheet in your workbook. You need this in order to easily resize, for reasons explained below.
2. You’ll probably want to turn off the border by right-clicking on the “Chart area” and select “Format Chart Area…”. In the Patterns tab, set the Border to None.
3. When you’re happy with the chart, resize the chart object to be about right in Scala. Whatever size (in pixels) it is on the screen in Excel, that’s what you’ll get in Scala. (If you don’t know, start by making a guess).
4. With Excel and Designer running, right-click on the “Chart area” for your chart, and select “Copy”.
5. On the intended page within Scala, click on the Edit toolbar icon and select Paste.
6. You *can* resize the chart in Scala, but it will look better if you resize it in Excel, because Excel deals in lines and curves, but once you pass it through the clipboard it ends up as pixels in Scala, which looks worse once rescaled.
7. If the size is wrong, you can go back into Excel and resize the chart object or otherwise manipulate the chart to get a better result.
8. Scala should automatically turn the page-white to transparent, which lets the background show through nicely. If that’s wrong for your use, find the “Chroma Key?” checkmark on the Clip tab within Scala and turn it off.
9. Consider turning off all the labels and doing your labels in Scala.
For Tables:
1. Use a nice big readable font in Excel. For example, you could try Segoe 30.
2. In Excel, set the border and grid effects you desire.
3. Select the range of text, and Copy it to the clipboard.
4. In Designer, go to the destination page, and in the Edit toolbar menu, select “Paste Special”.
5. In the Paste Special dialog, check the “Paste as Clip?” option. (You can choose “Store in Separate File?” or not, as appropriate.)
6. Typically, Scala makes the gray gridlines transparent. Turn off the “Chroma Key” option to see the gridlines.
7. Again, better to do your resizing within Excel and re-paste to Scala because Excel can re-render the information without crinkles.
When working with these clips, you may find you’ve accidentally resized one a bit. If that was the last thing you did, you can Undo. But you can go to the Position tab and you’ll find a Size? checkmark. Turn it off to restore the clip to its natural size, which fixes any crinkles.