What's new in version 5.1

The following list renders all important enhancements of think-cell 5.1. Please refer to the think-cell user guide for further details on the new features.

In general

• Negative numbers can now be rendered with brackets. In case you are using the traditional minus sign for negative numbers you can freely determine its position, e.g. before the number or behind it.
• We added support for number magnitudes (times 10, times 100, and so on) to help you render large numbers without using too much chart space.
• Series legends can now have multi-column layouts. In particular it is possible to build horizontal legends.
• Segment outlines can now be freely colored.

Stacked chart

• We added the "% of data sheet 100%=" setting to the possible label contents of difference arrows.
• CAGR arrows are now placed more closely to the chart to consume less chart space.

Line and area chart

• Line and area charts can now be flipped just as stacked or clustered charts.
• The value-based X-axis in line and area charts can now also render dates from the Excel data sheet. You can use this new feature for example to create stock charts with very dense date labels.
• The smoothed lines option makes line charts with many data points visually more appealing.
• We added an error bar option to line charts. Since you can combine an arbitrary number of data series you can also use this new feature to supplement stock charts with high-low-values.

Gantt chart

• We improved the calendar interface with range handles and support for editor-style mouse selection of ranges.
• We made the weekend setting more flexible, e.g. to support Middle East locales.

Scatter and bubble chart

• You can now add trend lines to an abitrary number of data series. They are automatically derived from the data points of the series. You can also interactively place partition lines on scatter and bubble charts that do not depend on specific data points or series.
• In addition to the series legend you can now add a referential bubble to the side of a bubble chart to denote the relation between bubble size and Z value.
• To support the creation of label plots we have introduced the "No Markers" setting that removes any data point markers from a scatter chart and shows the labels only.

Marimekko chart

• The X-axis can now alternatively render percentages or absolute values independent of whether you are working on a Marimekko with a Y-axis showing percentages or absolute values. This allows for arbitrary combinations between percent and absolute value-based axes.

Data sheet and Excel link

• We added a public interface function to programmatically control automatic chart updates. The function can be called from any COM-enabled programming environment, e.g. Excel's VBA engine. The function applies any data links in a given Excel work book to a PowerPoint template file and returns a new presentation where the charts have been updated accordingly.
• A new setting in the number format property control allows the format of a selected number label to be derived from the number format of the corresponding Excel cell.
• A new setting in the fill color property control allows the fill color of a selected segment to be derived from the fill color of the corresponding Excel cell.
• The internal data sheet stays open when switching to another application to simplify copy and paste.
• We added a button to the tool bar in the internal data sheet to quickly clear all Excel formatting in the data sheet.

Tools

• We added a function to the chart's context menu to make an abitrary set of think-cell charts and native PowerPoint shapes the same width or height.
• The increments and states of Harvey Balls can now be configured by the user.
• With the new functions "Save Selected Slides" and "Send Selected Slides" you can now easily excerpt certain slides from your presentation and save them as a new presentation or send them as a zipped attachment to a colleague via email.
• We have replaced PowerPoint's standard "Replace Fonts" dialog with a more powerful version that allows to scope the replacement to the selection, the current slide or entire presentation. In addition, font sizes can be changed incrementally.