Some data labels appear inconsistently in your charts when you open an Excel 2002 workbook in Excel 2000 (277595)

SYMPTOMS

When you use Microsoft Excel 2002 to create a workbook containing charts and data labels, and then you open the workbook in Microsoft Excel 2000, you find that some of the data labels appear inconsistently in your charts, while other data labels may not appear at all.

This can happen if different methods are used to format the charts. For example, two apparently identical charts may be formatted using the following two different methods:

Method 1

1. Select the first chart.
2. On the Chart menu, click Chart Options, and then click the Data Labels tab.
3. Click to select Series name, Category name, and Value. Click OK.
4. In the chart, double-click a series of data to open the Format Data Series dialog box.
5. Click the Data Labels tab, and then click to clear Category name and Value. Click OK.

Method 2

1. Select the second chart.
2. Double-click the same series of data (that you selected in Method 1) to open the Format Data Series dialog box.
3. Click the Data Labels tab, and then click to select Series name. Click OK.

You might expect these two methods to produce identical charts, because both contain a data series that should only be formatted using the Series name. However, if this workbook is created using Microsoft Excel 2002, and then opened using Microsoft Excel 2000, the data labels may appear differently. In this example, the first chart may appear with Value labels instead of Series name labels. The second chart may appear with no labels at all.

NOTE: These two methods assume that you are using two or more data series. If there is only one data series, both methods may result in charts where no labels appear.