🏆 Retirement Planner Template (Excel)

Microsoft Excel Show & Tell
11

Hi Randy,

Thanks for the great feedback!

I agree this is a bit wonky.

A few things to keep in mind:

  1. If an absolute range for a chart extends into blank cells, it will render the x-axis for the number of cells selected in the data range, even if they are blank (i.e., unlike Google Sheets, it won’t dynamically shrink the x-axis to ignore the blank cells at the end of the range)
  2. Excel charts can’t reference dynamic arrays directly:
    2.1 Series Data → =K2# will error
  3. As a work around, Excel charts can reference named ranges, and named ranges can reference dynamic arrays.
    3.1 Series Data → CashFlowChartSeriesData → =K2# will wor, where CashFlowChartSeriesData is a named range.
  4. When you copy sheets, or move them to new workbooks, Excel updates the charts to delete references to the named ranges and replace them with absolute references
    4.1 If you’ve setup Step 2.1, the copied sheet will show: Series Data → =K$2$:K$31$, or whatever K2# referenced at that time.
    4.2 Additionally, it doesn’t fully re-render the chart, so things like the “Years” legend will show as index numbers (1, 2, 3…) instead of years (2023, 2024, 2025…)

To work around these limitations as best as possible, I’ve created the named ranges so they are ready to be applied; however, I did not set them in the template charts because they will be replaced and not re-rendered correctly.

You can get dynamic rendering following the Dynamic Charts instructions in the original post, where there are manual and macro-based options for setup.

I may be missing another really obvious way to work around this issue. If you’ve got other ideas, please let me know.

Great catch! I’ve fixed this.

Also updated, thank you!

I really appreciate your thoughtful feedback. If you have any ideas to make the charts more dynamic without requiring additional manual steps after installation, let me know, and I’ll make the updates.

Thanks!