PHPExcel Chart X-Axis Between Tick Marks

Question

I'm working on an old script and I've hit a problem for a configuration that does not appear to be documented. I have a dynamically created bar chart. The bars are vertical. Everything is fine except the position of the bars on the X axis. The first and last one are half cut off. I can fix it easily after producing the spreadsheet. I click on the X-axis and switch the position to "Between tick marks" instead of "On tick marks." I cannot find anything in any form of PHPExcel documentation for setting the position of the X axis to "between" instead of "on." Does this setting exist?

Answer 1

PHPExcel has been replaced by PHPSpreadsheet, but there are cases where it is not possible to change from PHPExcel to PHPSpreadsheet. The option that must be set is "crossBetween" for the X Axis. PHPExcel does not make this a customizable option. It is hard-coded in Charts.php with the value "midCat". That setting places the first bar directly under the Y axis and the last bar hanging off the right side of the chart. Each bar is cut off. To place the bars between the ticks, edit Charts.php and change the entry for "midCat" to "between". You should only find "midCat" once in the file. This will hard-code all charts to be between the ticks. Change it back if you want it back to what it used to be. The proper fix is to make this an option you can change. That requires editing multiple files. The Axis object needs a cross_between option. Then, a setter is needed to update that option. The writer needs to pull from that option instead of hard-coding the value. Chart lets you get the X Axis, but you can't set it once you update an option. So, you need a setter for the X Axis for the chart. Then, you can create a chart, get the X Axis, change the crossBetween value, and set the updated axis in the chart.