Excel: Duplicated PlotOrder for two Series in a Chart

Question

I have a ChartObject, with 10 Series. I have two Series with .PlotOrder = 1, and two other with .PlotOrder = 2. Therefore, the .PlotOrder of the last Series is 8. Can this be explained? I expected .PlotOrder to span from 1 to .Count.

Proof of what I have is that, during execution of a Sub, I get in cho a reference to the ChartObject in question. Then, in the immediate window:

? cho.Chart.SeriesCollection(cho.Chart.SeriesCollection.Count).PlotOrder
 8

? cho.Chart.SeriesCollection.Count
 10 

Answer 1

Reply to @chrisneilsen, but it is too long for adding as a comment.

The reply is partially correct (I summarize here what I found):

1. The repeated PlotOrders are due to the Chart having more than one ChartGroup

2. I do not have Series with different format (they have different ChartTypes, but all with format XYScatter).

   The grouping is not automatically done by ChartType, with the ChartTypes of my case, so this does not seem to be the cause for having more than one ChartGroup. It may have been automatic (and it probably was), but based on other criteria.

Details:

Working with another chart that presents the same situation (all Series with format XYScatter), I have executed a Sub to dump info on all ChartGroups and all the Series in the chart. Indented once it dumps ChartGroups, and indented twice it dumps Series in each ChartGroup.

ChartObject 'Chart 36', no. series: 6
* ChartGroup, .Index: 1, no. series: 2
** plot order: 1, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 36', chart type: 73, no. points: 17
** plot order: 2, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 36', chart type: -4169, no. points: 17
* ChartGroup, .Index: 2, no. series: 4
** plot order: 1, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 36', chart type: 75, no. points: 2
** plot order: 2, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 36', chart type: -4169, no. points: 24
** plot order: 3, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 36', chart type: 75, no. points: 33
** plot order: 4, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 36', chart type: -4169, no. points: 5

Therefore, the repeated PlotOrders are due to the Chart having more than one ChartGroup (as correctly guessed by @chrisnielsen).

On the other hand, ChartGroups do not group series by ChartType (as stated by @chrisnielsen) as seen in the dump. Moreover, I do not know how were the ChartGroups created and the Series included in each ChartGroup (I never did this intentionally).

And to test whether the grouping may have been done automatically, I created another Chart which has Series with the same ChartTypes as the one above, and they all belong to a single ChartGroup, as shown in the dump

ChartObject 'Chart 1', no. series: 6
* ChartGroup, .Index: 1, no. series: 6
** plot order: 1, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 1', chart type: 73, no. points: 17
** plot order: 2, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 1', chart type: -4169, no. points: 17
** plot order: 3, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 1', chart type: 75, no. points: 2
** plot order: 4, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 1', chart type: -4169, no. points: 24
** plot order: 5, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 1', chart type: 75, no. points: 33
** plot order: 6, type: -4169, chart: 'Chart 1', chart type: -4169, no. points: 5

So the grouping is not automatically done by ChartType, with the ChartTypes of my case. It may have been automatic (and it probably was), but based on other criteria.

The official site is not very helpful:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa173251%28v=office.11%29.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa173240%28v=office.11%29.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa195778%28v=office.11%29.aspx

This sparks another question, which I posted in

Excel: In which ways can one create ChartGroups?