Two Color XY -Area Combo Chart

I was reading a post on the PTS Blog about how to fill in the area between two lines in an excel chart and I thought of a way to make it more complicated and thus more intimidating to your coworkers.

The original article shows how to color the area between two lines in a chart where the lines never cross.  I'm going to assume you're like me and you read that blog every day so you already know what I'm talking about.

What if you want to cross the lines?  The good news is that crossing the lines doesn't break anything, the area between the lines is still filled in perfectly.  The bad news is that the fill series is only one color and as soon as you show it to someone they'll ask why the positive and negative areas aren't green and red, respectively (which you shouldn't do anyway because a lot of people are red/green colorblind).  Before today, you would have said that it would take too long to add a second color, that it was impossible, or you would have just drawn auto shapes on top of the chart.  Today though there is a much easier solution:

1. Download the workbook at the end of this post.
2. Plug in your data values.
3. Profit.

If you actually want to know how the chart works, please read on...

Large Claim Chart #2 - Pretty Pictures

Alright, I finally got around to posting this thing...

So when we left off I was explaining the idea behind a large claim chart and why they can be useful.  Now, a history lesson.

When I first started my job, we had one table that explained large claims that I've recreated below.  Like all images on this blog, please click for a usable size.

Update

Did anybody read my blog while I was gone? No? Great!

I'm going to get serious about updating this thing at some point, just probably not this week. I'm a little bit under the weather, I'm preparing to reformat my Mac and install Snow Leopard, my 1TB drive with all of my movies on it died, and Jaclyn surprised me with a DSi for my birthday about a month early. So yeah, not a lot of time to blog.

My large claim chart will eventually be posted. Also, the over-commercialization of this blog is a joke. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy stuff!!! I'm trying to buy a house in the next two years. I'd love to put Adsense up, but for some reason Google insists I already have an application in that has been pending review for 2 months.

Large Claim Chart #1 - Background

In the coming days (or weeks, my Gamefly account is dominating a zero-sum game with my blog) I'm going to be posting my large claim chart.  It gets a little health insurance-y, so I thought I'd explain a few things before I begin.

For the zero people who read this blog...

New Blog

I finally gave in and started a new blog.  I guess I just like talking about myself too much.

I'm going to try to keep the tone of this blog a little more professional.  We'll see how that goes.

When time permits, I'd like to do a series of posts about my large claim chart.  Feedback would be appreciated, but I'll be shocked if anyone I don't know reads this blog.