This is not the first bad experience I’ve had with IE9, which frankly is one of the worst browser implementations I’ve ever seen.

If you’ve arrived here, you’re probably looking for a solution. Here’s what worked for me:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" >

That we have to resort to this kind of shit beggars belief.

Features:

• Correctly renders all Excel formatting (except conditional formats).
• Creates clean, formatted HTML that validates to HTML 4.01 strict.
• Optimised stylesheet to ensure minimal page weight.
• Supports merged cells with ROWSPAN and COLSPAN.
• Updates the webpage automatically when cells’ values are changed.
• The webpage automatically refreshes itself at a user-supplied interval.

The result is almost pixel-perfect, compare this Excel screenshot with the HTML page it generated.

• When you copy a formula from the clipboard, relative references are adjusted, so Range(x).Formula=Range(y).Formula doesn’t produce the expected results. The correct way is Range(x).Formula=Range(y).FormulaR1C1. Easy once you’ve been there.
• Copying border formats with Range(x).Borders=Range(y).Borders crashes Excel. You have to copy each individual border, left, right, top, etc.
• Similarly for fonts, you have to copy the font attributes one by one.
• Good practice: check that the areas have compatible sizes and don’t overlap.

Nothing inordinately difficult, but time-consuming to get right. Here’s the code:

Option Explicit

' Copy cells without using the clipboard.
'
' Source is a range from which to copy values/formulas/formats.
' Dest is the destination range. Must be either
'     a single cell, the top-left of the target range. The source size (rows x columns) is copied.
'   or
'     a range exactly the same size as source. We throw an error if the shapes don't match.
'
' If 'what' is omitted, copies the values.
' what=CopyFormulas copies the formulas instead of the values.
' what=CopyFormats copies the formats.
' what=CopyFormulas+CopyFormats copies both.
'
' Examples:
'   CopyCells Range("b2:c6"), Range("h10")                                   ' Copies 8 cells (6x2) from B2 to H10
'   CopyCells Range(cells(2,2),cells(6,3)), Range("h10")                     ' Idem
'   CopyCells Range(cells(2,2),cells(6,3)), Range(cells(10,10),cells(14,12)) ' Fails, source is 6x2, dest is 6x3
'   CopyCells Range("b2:c6"), Range("b3")                                    ' Fails, source and dest intersect

Public Const CopyFormulas = 1
Public Const CopyFormats = 2
Public Sub CopyCells(source As Range, dest As Range, Optional what As Long)

    ' Turn off screen updating, wastes (a lot of) time
    Dim updating As Boolean
    updating = Application.ScreenUpdating
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False

    If IsMissing(what) Then
        what = 0
    End If

    Dim r As Long
    Dim c As Long

    ' If destination is not a singe (r,c) top-left cell, ensure that the ranges are the same shape and size
    If dest.Rows.Count > 1 Or dest.Columns.Count > 1 Then

        If dest.Rows.Count <> source.Rows.Count Or _
           dest.Columns.Count <> source.Columns.Count Then

            Err.Raise 1000, "CopyCells", "Destination area " & dest.Rows.Count & "x" & dest.Columns.Count & _
                " is not the same shape as the source area " & source.Rows.Count & "x" & source.Columns.Count

        End If
    End If

    If Not (Intersect(source, dest) Is Nothing) Then
            Err.Raise 1000, "CopyCells", "Source area " & Replace(source.Address, "$", "") & " " & source.Rows.Count & "x" & source.Columns.Count & _
                " intersects destination area " & Replace(dest.Address, "$", "") & " " & dest.Rows.Count & "x" & dest.Columns.Count
    End If

    For r = 1 To source.Rows.Count

        For c = 1 To source.Columns.Count

            If what And CopyFormulas Then
                dest.Cells(r, c).Formula = source.Cells(r, c).FormulaR1C1
            Else
                dest.Cells(r, c).Value = source.Cells(r, c).Value
            End If

            If what And CopyFormats Then

                Dim b As Long
                For b = xlEdgeLeft To xlInsideHorizontal
                    With source.Cells(r, c).Borders(b)
                        dest.Cells(r, c).Borders(b).Weight = .Weight ' You must do this *before* linestyle
                        dest.Cells(r, c).Borders(b).LineStyle = .LineStyle
                        dest.Cells(r, c).Borders(b).ColorIndex = .ColorIndex
                        dest.Cells(r, c).Borders(b).TintAndShade = .TintAndShade
                    End With
                Next
                dest.Cells(r, c).ColumnWidth = source.Cells(r, c).ColumnWidth
                dest.Cells(r, c).Interior.Color = source.Cells(r, c).Interior.Color
                dest.Cells(r, c).Interior.Pattern = source.Cells(r, c).Interior.Pattern
                dest.Cells(r, c).HorizontalAlignment = source.Cells(r, c).HorizontalAlignment
                dest.Cells(r, c).IndentLevel = source.Cells(r, c).IndentLevel
                dest.Cells(r, c).NumberFormat = source.Cells(r, c).NumberFormat
                dest.Cells(r, c).Orientation = source.Cells(r, c).Orientation
                dest.Cells(r, c).RowHeight = source.Cells(r, c).RowHeight
                dest.Cells(r, c).UseStandardHeight = source.Cells(r, c).UseStandardHeight
                dest.Cells(r, c).UseStandardWidth = source.Cells(r, c).UseStandardWidth
                dest.Cells(r, c).VerticalAlignment = source.Cells(r, c).VerticalAlignment
                dest.Cells(r, c).WrapText = source.Cells(r, c).WrapText

                With source.Cells(r, c).Font
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Background = .Background
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Bold = .Bold
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Color = .Color
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.ColorIndex = .ColorIndex
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.FontStyle = .FontStyle
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Italic = .Italic
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Shadow = .Shadow
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Size = .Size
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Strikethrough = .Strikethrough
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Subscript = .Subscript
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Superscript = .Superscript
                    dest.Cells(r, c).Font.Underline = .Underline
                End With
                On Error GoTo 0
            End If

        Next
    Next

    Application.ScreenUpdating = updating

End Sub

Sub test()
    CopyCells Range("b2:c6"), Range("h10"), CopyFormulas + CopyFormats
End Sub

Excel has had bubble diagrams sine 2003 but they are just an X-Y plot with variable-sized nodes. What Pavel was after is an automatic layout, with lines joining the nodes, along these lines:

Not perfect, but you get the idea, and it’s produced automatically. To do this, you’ll need Excel, Visio, Graphvizio and this zip file which contains the sample XLS, GV, VSD and JPG files.

• Open the XLS. Column A is the node’s title, B is the title and the amount separated by a newline. Columns C, D and E specify the node’s parent, colour and amount. Column F computes the diameter of the node, in inches, from the amount:

Column G just creates Graphviz DOT statements from the values. G1 and G2 are the prelude. Copying column G into a text file called bubble1.gv, we get:

graph  RootGraph {
node [fontname=Arial, fontsize=12, style=filled];

"Total\n620" [width="3.1", height="3.1", color="gray", fillcolor="gray", shape=circle];

"Children, schools, family\n63"--"Total\n620" [color="pink"]; "Children, schools, family\n63" [width="0.315", height="0.315", color="pink", fillcolor="pink", shape=circle];

"Schools\n42"--"Children, schools, family\n63" [color="pink"]; "Schools\n42" [width="0.21", height="0.21", color="pink", fillcolor="pink", shape=circle];

...snip...

}

• Fire up Visio. Graph>Diagram->Import Graphviz
• To get the circular layout, Graph->Settings->Diagram->Concentric
• Graph->Layout
• A little tweaking of the font sizes and line thickness and you’re on your way

Enjoy!

How did I do this in Excel? GeodesiX

The following topics are covered:

• How RTD servers work
• Architecture
• Excel, Multithreading and callbacks
• Providing easy-to-read function names
• Talking to the GoogleMaps APIs
• Avoiding Application Domain misery
• Embedding a GoogleMap page in an Excel Task Pane
• Creating the Setup project
• Changing the Excel RTD Throttle Interval
• Utility functions
• Building help from the source with Sandcastle

I hope that you will find it useful.

This is useful for creating GoogleMap applications to find places from a list, like this.

Implements three Excel formulas:

=Geocode(request, location)

Request is the field to return:

• status The status of the geocode request (Fetching, OK, N matches, etc.)
• latitude The latitude of ‘location’
• longitude The longitude of ‘location’
• and so on: formatted_address, country political,administrative_area_level_1 political, administrative_area_level_2 political, administrative_area_level_3 political, locality political, sublocality political, route, street_number, postal_code, types, location_type, partial_match, point_of_interest, establishment, viewpointne, viewpointsw, airport establishment transit_station, bus_station transit_station, establishment, natural_feature, neighborhood political, postal_town, premise, street_address, subpremise

Location is the name or address of a place or point of interest

=GreatCircleDistance(latitude1, longitude1, latitude2, longitude2)

Calculates the Great Circle Distance using Vincenty’s Formula, with fallback to the Haversine formula when Vincenty’s method doesn’t converge.

=Travel(request, origin, destination, mode)

Calculates the distance or duration to get from origin to destination, according to Google Directions.

Request is the field to return:

• distance The distance in metres from origin to destination
• duration The estimated duration from origin to destination

Origin and destination are the names or addresses of the start and finish.

Mode is the mode of transport to use: Driving, Bicycling or Walking

Free download here

Enjoy!

Screenshot, click to enlarge:

What I wanted was a tool which would unravel the spaghetti, so that I could get a grasp of the relationships, edit and revise them and layout again in an iterative process.
Searching for a solution, I found three layout programs, none of which have a Visio interface:

1. Microsoft Automatic Graph Layout (MSAGL), formerly known as GLEE The first version, GLEE, is free whereas MSAGL costs between 99 USD and 279 USD depending on where you buy it.
2. Tom Sawyer Layout is also a graph layout library, the price isn’t disclosed on their website.
3. Graphviz from AT&T research labs, reputed to have the most sophisticated layout algorithms, is free.

Given that the best quality was to be found in the free library, I made the obvious choice.
It took me over a year and some 11’000 lines of VB to get Visio and Graphviz to co-exist; marrying a Unix-style command-line program with a WYSIWYG interface, both with quirks to numerous to mention, was far more challenging than I initially thought.
The result, unimaginatively called GraphVizio, is available here, I hope you’ll find it useful.

25 May 2011 Version 1.1.5 released. Improvements:

Full support for 64-bit Windows and Visio

No longer makes a Visio document ‘dirty’ when opening

Full support for UTF8. This DOT file:

graph  RootGraph {
  node [width="7.08661417322834", height="0.787401574803148", color="#000000", fillcolor="#FFFFFF", fontname=Calibri, fontsize=24, style=filled, shape=box];
  edge [color="#000000", fillcolor="#FFFFFF"];

  "English: Hello, my name is Maurice\n(and blame Google if the translations are bad)" [pos="283.704566929134,620.932913385827", label="English: Hello, my name is Maurice\n(and blame Google if the translations are bad)"];
  "Russian: Здравствуйте, меня зовут Морис" [pos="283.704566929134,526.932913385827", label="Russian: Здравствуйте, меня зовут Морис"];
  "مرحبا، اسمي موريس : Arabic" [pos="283.704566929134,432.932913385827", label="مرحبا، اسمي موريس : Arabic"];
  "Chinese: 你好，我叫莫里斯" [pos="283.704566929134,338.932913385827", label="Chinese: 你好，我叫莫里斯"];
  "שלום, שמי הוא מוריס : Hebrew" [pos="283.704566929134,244.932913385827", label="שלום, שמי הוא מוריס : Hebrew"];
  "Japanese: こんにちは、私の名前はモーリスです" [pos="283.704566929134,150.932913385826", label="Japanese: こんにちは、私の名前はモーリスです"];
  "Thai: สวัสดีชื่อของฉันคือ Maurice" [pos="283.704566929134,56.9329133858268", label="Thai: สวัสดีชื่อของฉันคือ Maurice"];

  "English: Hello, my name is Maurice\n(and blame Google if the translations are bad)"--"Russian: Здравствуйте, меня зовут Морис";
  "Russian: Здравствуйте, меня зовут Морис"--"مرحبا، اسمي موريس : Arabic";
  "مرحبا، اسمي موريس : Arabic"--"Chinese: 你好，我叫莫里斯";
  "Chinese: 你好，我叫莫里斯"--"שלום, שמי הוא מוריס : Hebrew";
  "שלום, שמי הוא מוריס : Hebrew"--"Japanese: こんにちは、私の名前はモーリスです";
  "Japanese: こんにちは、私の名前はモーリスです"--"Thai: สวัสดีชื่อของฉันคือ Maurice";
}

produces this Visio diagram:

Graphvizio UTF8

Here is an example, taken from my Affine addin. The two images I insert are shown by the arrow:

Finding out how to do this is trickier than expected, so here’s the recipe:

1. Import the images into the project and create a .RC file which identifies them:
   

   affinehide.bmp bitmap "affinehide.bmp"
   affinefade.bmp bitmap "affinefade.bmp"

   I called this file images.rc in the images directory in my project.

2. You’ll need RC.EXE, the resource compiler, which is in the Windows SDK. The
   2008 version for .NET 3.5 is here
3. In your setup project’s, set the prebuild event to
   

   "D:Affinerc.exe" /r "d:affineimagesimages.rc"

   I copied RC.exe into my project directory because I sometimes work on a 64-bit box, where Program Files becomes Program Files (X86). Adjust the paths to suit your installation.

4. Open your project’s .VBPROJ file and insert the three red lines shown:
   

   <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding="utf-8"?>
   <Project DefaultTargets="Build"
   xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"
   ToolsVersion="3.5">
   <PropertyGroup>
   <Win32Resource>imagesimages.res</Win32Resource>
   </PropertyGroup>
   <PropertyGroup>
   <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>

   Thanks to Wouter van Vugt for this!

5. The HTML to insert the images is straightforward:
   

   <img src="res://affine.dll/#2/affinehide.bmp"

   where #2 means that the embedded object is an image
   Assuming this string is stored in the variable "buttonhtml" then the code to insert the button on the page is

   a.insertAdjacentHTML(&#34afterEnd&#34, buttonhtml)

6. Now for the events. You need an event handler for the DHTML event itself:
   

   Imports mshtml
   Public Delegate Sub DHTMLEvent(ByVal e As IHTMLEventObj)
   _
   Public Class DHTMLEventHandler
   Public Handler As DHTMLEvent
   Private Document As mshtml.IHTMLDocument
   Public Sub New(ByVal doc As mshtml.IHTMLDocument)
   Me.Document = doc
   End Sub
   _
   Public Sub [Call]()
   Handler(CType(Document.parentWindow.event, mshtml.IHTMLEventObj))
   End Sub
   End Class

   Thanks to Rick Strahl

7. A handler which the above will call, to actually deal with the event:
   

   Imports mshtml
   Module BrowserEventHandler_
   Public Sub BrowserEventHandler(ByVal e As mshtml.IHTMLEventObj)
   Try
   If e.type = "click"” AndAlso e.srcElement.tagName = "IMG" Then
   …

8. and finally tghe code to add in in your DocumentComplete event:
   

   Dim Handler As DHTMLEventHandler = New DHTMLEventHandler(doc)
   Handler.Handler = AddressOf BrowserEventHandler
   doc.onclick = Handler

Happy coding!

Doubtless, MS will try and wriggle out by saying that it depends on how your international settings are made. My contention is that if ISNUMERIC says it is then you should be able to CAST it to a number.

Period. 

(sorry for the weak pun)