Black Border around the Column Chart in VBA - vba

Question

I try to set a black border around the Column chart from my Vba CODE. This is what i have now. The last row where i set Border.ColorIndex obviously does not work. Currently the column looks like this.
I want it to look like this.
Here is my code.
ActiveSheet.Cells(10000, 10000).Select
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddChart.Select
With ActiveChart ' clear SeriesCollection
Do Until .SeriesCollection.Count = 0
.SeriesCollection(1).Delete
Loop
End With
ActiveChart.ChartType = xlColumnClustered
ActiveChart.PlotVisibleOnly = True
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsNewSheet, Name:="Plottt" ' rename chart sheets
' create SeriesCollection for each line
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection.NewSeries
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Name = "Hallo"
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).XValues = breaks
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Values = freq
ActiveChart.ChartGroups(1).GapWidth = 0
ActiveChart.ChartGroups(1).Border.ColorIndex = 3
Also i would like to reduce the step size from my code. Help with this would also be appreciated.

Answer 1

To set the border color for a SeriesCollection(1) use the line below:
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Format.Line.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(255, 0, 0)
Note: it's better to not use ActiveChart, and it's "relatives". Instead use referenced objects. In this case use a ChartObject.
Simple reference code:
Dim Chtobj As ChartObject
' modify "Chart_Data" Name to your Sheet, and "Chart 1" to your chart's name
Set Chtobj = Sheets("Chart_Data").ChartObjects("Chart 1")
With Chtobj
' modify the chartobject properties here...
' modify the major unit of X-axis
.Axes(xlCategory).MajorUnit = 5 '<-- modify to whatever value you want
' modify the minor unit of X-axis
.Axes(xlCategory).MinorUnit = 1
End With

Answer 2

I am not sure why the border isn't showing, though I suspect that there must be a property that determines its visibility or thickness.
For cleaning up your code though, try this:
Dim oChart as Object
ActiveSheet.Cells(10000, 10000).Select
Set oChart = ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddChart
With oChart' clear SeriesCollection
Do Until .SeriesCollection.Count = 0
.SeriesCollection(1).Delete
Loop
.ChartType = xlColumnClustered
.PlotVisibleOnly = True
.Location Where:=xlLocationAsNewSheet, Name:="Plottt" ' rename chart sheets
' create SeriesCollection for each line
.SeriesCollection.NewSeries
With .SeriesCollection(1)
.Name = "Hallo"
.XValues = breaks
.Values = freq
End With
With .ChartGroups(1)
.GapWidth = 0
With .Border
.ColorIndex = 3
' You may need the LineStyle property of the border
' https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff821622.aspx
.Linestyle = xlContinuous
End With
End With
End With ' Ends the with block for the entire chart
This should not only clean up your code quite a bit and make it easier to debug, but I have had cases where an object I am working with doesn't update properly if I try to update it's properties outside of a with block. I am not sure if there is a reason for this or not, but I err on the side of using the With block just in case.