Author: Oscar Cronquist Article last updated on February 13, 2023

how to animate a line chart

This article demonstrates how to create an animation using a line chart in Excel. The user selects a series in a drop-down box and a macro animates the chart.

The animated image below shows what happens when the user selects a series, as you can see the chart has a small trailing shadow effect.

animating a line chart with shadow1

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How I made this chart

The chart data is in cell range B3:J8. A small VBA macro calculates the difference between the current series and the new series and then divides it by 20. The result is shown in cell range C10:J10.

animated line chart

The chart data source is cell range C13:J17. The chart uses 4 lines to create the trailing shadow effect. Series 1 is the main line, the others are shadows.

Here you can see the calculations in action.

animating a line chart with shadow - calculations1

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Event code

'Event code that fires as soon as any cell value in the worksheet has changed
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)

'If ... then statement - Check if target cell adress is equal to L6
If Target.Address = "$L$6" Then

    'Enable error handling
    On Error Resume Next

        'Find position of value saved cell L6 in cell range B4:B8 and save to variable x
        x = WorksheetFunction.Match(Range("L6"), Range("B4:B8"), 0) - 1

        'Stop macro if an error has occurred
        If Err > 0 Then Exit Sub

    'Disable error handling
    On Error GoTo 0

    'For ... Next statement- Iterate from 1 to 8 using variable i
    For i = 1 To 8

        'Calculate and save value from data table to cell range C13:J13
        Range("C10:J10").Cells(i) = (Range(Cells(4 + x, "C"), Cells(4 + x, "J")).Cells(i) - _
        Range("C13:J13").Cells(i)) / 20
    Next i

    'For ... Next statement- Iterate from 1 to 20 using variable i
    For i = 1 To 20

        'Save values in cell range C13:J16 to cell range C14:J17
        Range("C14:J17") = Range("C13:J16").Value

        'For ... Next statement- Iterate from 1 to 8 using variable j
        For j = 1 To 8

            'Add cell value from cell range C13:J13 and C10:J10 and save to cell range C13:J13 based on variable j 
            Range("C13:J13").Cells(j) = Range("C13:J13").Cells(j) + Range("C10:J10").Cells(j)
        Next j

        'Show changes on screen
        DoEvents

        'And once again to make it work in Excel 365
        DoEvents
    Next i
    For j = 1 To 4
        Range("C14:J17") = Range("C13:J16").Value
        Range("C14:J14") = ""
        DoEvents
    Next j
End If
End Sub

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Where to put the code?

how to animate a line chart access worksheet module

  1. Righ-press with left mouse button on the worksheet tab located on the bottom left corner, see image above. A pop-up menu appears.
  2. Press with mouse on "View Code".
  3. The Visual Basic Editor opens up with the corresponding worksheet module open.
    how to animate a line chart VB Editor
  4. Copy VBA code above.
  5. Paste VBA code to the worksheet module.
  6. Return to Excel.
Note, save the workbook using file extension *.xlsm (macro-enabled workbook) to attach the VBA code to the file.

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Get the Excel file


Animating-a-line-chart.xlsm

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