Graphs in Word

[jmt356]

I have a Word document with a graph in it. The graph has 2 values: the month and a number of days. I recently switched to a new computer running Windows 7 (the former computer was running Windows Vista, so I don't know if that has anything to do with the change in behavior reported below). Normally, to update the graph, I double click it and a window that resembles an Excel spreadsheet pops up. I edit the values in there, and the new values become reflected in the bar graph after I close it. However, this time, on this new computer, when I double click it, I get a message stating "Installing: Microsoft graph feature," and after that, the window that resembles an Excel spreadsheet pops up. After I update the file with new values, I close the window by clicking on the X, but then, upon double-clicking the graph to again edit it, rather than getting the window that resembles an Excel spreadsheet, I get a "Format Walls" dialogue with border and shading choices. How can I get back the window in order to edit the date in the graph??

[HansV]

Which version of Word are you using?

[jmt356]

MS Office 2003

[HansV]

In that case, it sounds like Office 2003 wasn't installed completely or correctly on the Windows 7 computer.

[jmt356]

I repared the installation and this time, the same thing happened, minus the "Installing: Microsoft graph feature" message. The same "Format Walls" dialogue would pop up when I would double click the graph after editing the info contained therein.

I think I figured out what the problem was:
- Rather than putting in the necessary information in the month/day/year format, I was putting it in the Month-Year format, since that was how the graph was displaying the dates on the date axis. However, if I double click on the dates, it reveals that the way they are displaying beyond the façade is Month-Year-Format. When I type the date in in that format, it becomes updated in the graph and even after closing the Excel spreadsheet-like window, am able to continue editing.

But even this gives me a solution only part of the time; I was able to add two more figures on the x (horizontal) axis; when I added the third one, the "Format Walls" dialogue started appearing again when I double clicked on the graph.