What's new in version 5.0

Compatibility with Office 2007
think-cell chart 5.0 is fully compatible with Microsoft's newest Office suite – Office 2007. It integrates seamlessly into Office's new graphical user interface, extending PowerPoint's "Insert" Ribbon with a neat, unobtrusive "think-cell" Ribbon control that provides central access to all chart types. The floating property drop-down lists you already know from think-cell chart 4.3 have been redesigned to match the look and feel of Office 2007.
Don't worry if you have not yet switched to Office 2007. As always, this new version of think-cell chart is compatible with all current Office versions, beginning with Office 2000. You don't even have to run a different setup file. The same installation works with all Office versions.
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New features
Series labels can now display an additional or alternative label content variable that represents the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the data series they belong to.
Sometimes you might need to reuse existing data that has been organized with the first data series on top and further data series going down (old MS Graph data layout). To help you with this, you can now flip data series in the internal data sheet by using a tool bar button. This function works just like the "Transpose" button introduced in think-cell chart 4.3.
You can now freely show and hide tick marks on category axes.
Percent values in the internal data sheet can now also be used in scatter and bubble charts.
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Improved features
Category labels in Marimekko charts can now not only display content variables for the absolute and relative category extent as an alternative to the default category description content variable, but any combination of these three content variables.
The automatic placing of labels in sequence charts has been improved.
The fixed cell panes for labels, 100% values, extents and sizes in the internal data sheet now stay in place when you scroll through the actual data cells on the sheet. This will help you with keeping track of your sheet's content and the meaning of rows and columns.
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Increased performance
think-cell chart 5.0 features a faster and leaner Excel link because of improvements to the communication interface between Excel and PowerPoint.
We have further improved the start-up time by postponing some initialization steps until they are actually needed.
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What's new in version 4.3

Combination charts
In think-cell chart 4.3 you can freely combine stacked and clustered column charts with line charts. As you've come to expect from our products you do not have to navigate through a large number of menus and tab controls to build combination charts. Simply start with a stacked, a clustered or a line chart, select the series you want to change by multi-selection and switch between lines and segments with a single click in the context menu.
Since combination charts often render data related to two different data sets we have also added support for a secondary value axis. You can use the secondary axis in pure line charts or in combination charts. The secondary axis supports all adjustments you already know from the primary value axis. Breaks can be added independently from the primary axis. By dragging one of the two axes you can easily swap the location of both axes.
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Extended features
To increase legibility, it is in general a good idea to label series directly at the segments or line belonging to the series data. However, it is sometimes useful to render series descriptions in a separate legend. With think-cell chart 4.3 you can create legends by simply dragging series labels away from their series. The legend items can also be used to quickly change fills and line styles of series.
With 90 degree rotation you can now quickly switch from column charts to bar charts and vice versa. Creating butterfly charts is also much easier because you can create and style one half of the chart and then copy and flip it to create the complete chart.
think-cell chart 4.3 adds support for creating axes breaks in scatter and bubble charts.
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Time-saving user interface enhancements
All property drop-down lists to adjust font, color and the like now float directly over the think-cell chart element currently selected. This reduces mouse movement and saves precious room in the tool bar docking area. It also prepares think-cell chart for the new graphical user interface of Microsoft Office 2007.
think-cell chart automatically colors charts according to the PowerPoint color template. Sometimes, however, six colors simply are not enough. To help you select and use further custom colors we have added a list of most recently used colors.
By hiding or unhiding rows and columns in Excel you can hide or unhide the graphical data representation, e.g., bars or bubbles, of the rows and columns. This feature already existed for data coming from an external Excel sheet. Now it is also available in the internal data sheet.
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Improved stability, speed and compatibility
Version 4.3 is the most stable and fastest version of think-cell chart we have ever released. As it benefits from all our development experiences of the past five years, it is a very mature product that you can rely on under the most demanding usage scenarios. In particular, we have dramatically improved the speed when working with large data sets.
think-cell chart 4.3 is fully compatible with Windows Vista™.
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What's new in version 4.2

In general
Because of the many new chart types coming with think-cell chart 4.2 (see below) and because we are planning to add even more intelligent elements to your think-cell library, we have reorganized the chart selection. You will now find all chart types in a single pane with attractive, yet very practical graphical chart icons. Flipped and rotated varieties of the supported chart types are only a small mouse movement away and the toolbar itself needs a lot less room in your PowerPoint working environment.
We have added many new features and styling options to the existing charts. All chart types that feature an axis can now also be rendered with a plot area rectangle that automatically clips against all chart labels. Value axes feature optional grid lines and difference arrows now also come in the commonly used "gibbet" look. In charts with a category axis, you can now freely and easily adjust the gap width between categories. By using this feature to set the gap to zero, you can now also build staircase waterfall charts.
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Line, area and 100% area charts
think-cell chart 4.2 adds line, area and 100% area charts to the think-cell chart library. And as you would expect from think-cell they come with all the smartness that we built into the other chart types. By simple in-place editing you can add or remove data, series and category labels. You can add values lines, gibbet and interval style difference arrows as well as breaks.
We have also selected a quick-access set of coordinated schemes for line, fill and marker styles that make it very easy for you to create great looking line and area charts. Of course, you can style each line, fill and marker individually to emphasize important parts of the chart.
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Scatter and bubble charts
With think-cell chart 4.2, two of the most awaited data-driven charts have found their way into our charting package. With our new version you can create complex scatter and bubble chart in a few minutes. This is mainly because think-cell chart 4.2 can place all labels automatically.
Our patent-pending technology places all labels such that they do not intersect and are as close to their data point or bubble as possible. If labels are too far from their data point or bubble, a connector line is added. If you place some labels by hand, the other labels will still be placed automatically around them. And even better, you can not only add a single label to a point or bubble but two independent labels.
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Improved Excel link
Since its introduction in think-cell chart 4.0 we have greatly improved the smart Excel link feature. This second generation facility is now much faster and also more reliable. We added the ability to easily change the Excel range underlying a linked chart or to connect an existing chart to a selected Excel range. And if you do not need the think-cell toolbar in Excel momentarily, you can hide it to make more room for other toolbars.
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What's new in version 4.0

Excel link
The main new feature of think-cell chart 4.0 is the smart Excel link. It fosters consistency and correctness and helps you collaborate with your colleagues when doing complex analysis and visualization.
Creating and maintaining a PowerPoint chart based on Excel data becomes as easy as selecting a range of cells in Excel, clicking a chart button in the new think-cell Excel toolbar and placing the chart on the PowerPoint slide. A special list dialog helps you navigate through all charts in a presentation that are linked to Excel data and update their data. You have the choice of manually triggering updates or switching to automatic updates, which happen as soon as the Excel data changes.
In contrast to other linking techniques, with the smart Excel link of think-cell chart 4.0 broken links due to missing or renamed files are no longer a problem. If the Excel workbook or the PowerPoint presentation file have been renamed or moved, all links automatically reestablish themselves as soon as both files are open at the same time. Even if the Excel file is unavailable, you can still change the data of the linked chart using the think-cell datasheet. Any conflicts can be resolved later when the link is reestablished.
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Labeling
Another major improvement in think-cell chart 4.0 is the brand-new automatic chart labeler for all column and bar charts. Labels in column charts are now not only moved within their segments or to the side of the column but – if a lack of space demands it – stacked nicely on top of their column. This feature is particularly useful for clustered and Marimekko charts.
Although the automatic labeler is better than ever before, we have also added more options for manual placement and alignment of segment and series labels. A drag handle on each label allows you to quickly and easily give the labeler hints on where to place labels.
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Gantt chart
The Gantt chart comes with a new calendar dialog. It is much better organized and shows all important information about week days and calendar weeks at a glance. You can now fit two full calendar years on a regular screen, and still easily select a given day.
Newly created activity labels copy indent and bullet styles from existing labels and can be aligned left, center or right. Gantt bar labels can now be placed inside their bars.
Overall, the vertical spacing and alignment has been improved. Items such as milestones and bars shrink and grow automatically in case of extremely small or extremely large font sizes.
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Marimekko chart
The most visible improvement in the Marimekko chart is the automatic labeling (see above). But we also added some other useful features. You can now use difference arrows and add breaks to the value and category axis of Marimekko charts. Because the regular break style is not a good match for Marimekko charts, we have introduced the wiggle break. In addition, a ridge can be added to the Marimekko to emphasize the outline of the curve.
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100% chart
You can now add value axis breaks and difference arrows to the 100% chart.
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Style management
To give you more control over the styling of your charts , we have added a custom color picker to the color menu. We have also improved the visual clarity when printing charts by adding fill patterns and special support for the PowerPoint grayscale and black & white views.
You can now not only order a single customization of think-cell chart from us, but use multiple customizations at once, switching between them without restarting PowerPoint. This is in particular useful when creating presentations on behalf of other companies.
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Localization
Because of the huge global success of think-cell chart over the last year, we have made sure that think-cell chart 4.0 works fine with all imaginable localizations. Weeks can now start on Sundays in the Gantt chart and the current spell-checking language is used to display correct labels when creating a Gantt. We also improved the support for several Asian languages, such as Traditional and Simplified Chinese and Korean.
To accomodate internationally diverse rules of punctuations, frequently used number and date formats are now automatically added to the number format selection menu for quick reuse. think-cell chart 4.0 also maintains per-presentation punctuation settings, making sure that for example American and European number punctuation does not get inadvertently mixed in the same presentation.
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