Values not centering correctly in small spaces in Numbers

Question

Values not centering correctly in small spaces in Numbers

In stacked charts, when the value is low and there is just a little clear space around the number, the number never centers correctly in the available space, although there is technically enough space for it available. This drives me mad. You can't click into the number and adjust the position manually either, they way you can in Excel. The only thing you can adjust is the font, size and color, but not the position, and only for the entire row of values.

I know the workaround of saving the file as PDF and opening it in Illustrator, which is what I am doing now. But this is not great if you have to go in to the chart again and change values, as you loose all of your editing.

Has anybody come up with a better solution to this? I am attaching a screenshot that shows the problem clearly.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iMac 27″

Posted on Aug 15, 2024 2:35 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Badunit

Level 7

28,324 points

Aug 15, 2024 8:22 AM in response to How to modify a chart title

I agree it should center them. We on this forum are users just like yourself and cannot rewrite the code to make it work like it should. Report the bug to Apple via the menu item Numbers->Provide Numbers Feedback but don't expect it to be fixed anytime soon. Once in a while something gets fixed but some bugs (way worse than this one) have been around for years without being fixed.

There are alternatives to Numbers. Excel is the gold standard.

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Answer 2

Badunit

Level 7

28,324 points

Aug 15, 2024 5:04 AM in response to How to modify a chart title

That will happen when the bar is too short for the font. I do not have that font to test it but it appears to need a lot of room below the characters. All the ones I tried fit better than that. Regardless, all fonts will do this if the bar is too small. At some point all three settings (top, middle, bottom) give the same result. I suppose it was either a design choice (what to do when it does not fit) or they did not code it correctly. Table cells do a similar thing, except the text will extend below the bottom of the cell and be partially hidden.

You can try a different font or reduce the font size or make your chart taller.

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Answer 3

Yellowbox

Level 7

21,209 points

Aug 15, 2024 3:58 AM in response to How to modify a chart title

Hi,

Please post a screen shot of your data table to show us what you see as data.

Regards,

Ian.

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Answer 4

Yellowbox

Level 7

21,209 points

Aug 15, 2024 4:36 AM in response to How to modify a chart title

I can't reproduce that problem. I am not looking over your shoulder to see the data table.

Good luck with your project.

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Answer 5

Aug 15, 2024 6:46 AM in response to Badunit

Thanks for the reply, but it has nothing to do with the font, I have replaced it with Arial and the same thing happens. The program is not capable of centering the text in the available space. In the second screenshot I have opened the graph in Illustrator and moved the numbers manually – as you can see there is space for it.

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Answer 6

Aug 15, 2024 4:19 AM in response to Yellowbox

That is not relevant, the data is shown just like in the graph. It's a graphic issue, that the program is no able to center correctly in the available space. And you can see that from the screenshot I shared,

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Answer 7

Aug 15, 2024 9:00 AM in response to Badunit

Thank you for taking the time to reply to me, really appreciate it.

I'll post the bug to Apple, knowing that the chances of getting this fixed are minimal.

But I produce a lot of these graphs and I always run into the same issue, it is driving me nuts.

it's very difficult to make such nice-looking graphs in Excel though, I set them in a way that I can import them in exactly 100% to InDesign so the font size is identical throughout, which is vey hard to do in Excel.

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