XL2000: Using a Macro to Activate a Chart Changes the Selection

When you run a macro that activates and deactivates a chart, the chart remains selected. If your macro "expects" that the selection from before the chart is activated will remain the selection after the chart is deactivated, it may fail or may not perform as it did in earlier versions of Microsoft Excel.

If you programmatically activate an embedded chart in versions of Microsoft Excel earlier than Excel 97, the chart is not selected. The range or object that was selected before the chart was activated remains selected on the worksheet.

This behavior has changed in Excel 2000. In Excel 2000, programmatically activating a chart selects the chart area. Therefore, when the chart is deactivated, it remains selected.

This change in functionality may cause problems with code that "expects" the selection to remain as it was before chart activation.

To programmatically deactivate and deselect an embedded chart, you must select another object on the worksheet.

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   ActiveWindow.Visible = False
				

In Microsoft Excel 2000, you can use the following sample macro to restore the worksheet selection after the chart is deactivated. This macro demonstrates how you can store the selection before activating an embedded chart, and how to restore that selection and deactivate the chart.

Sub ChartSelection()
    Dim myobj As Range
    'Save the current selection in the object variable "myobj".
    Set myobj = Selection
    'Activate the embedded chart.
    ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(1).Activate
    'Restore the selection.
    myobj.Select
End Sub