SparkMaker is an add-in for Microsoft Office that allows you create your own sparklines in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or HTML documents.

New dialog
Version 4 of SparkMaker is based on a completely new creation process for sparklines: a single dialog is provided which minimizes click activity. All variants of sparklines are designed with this dialog, either as sparkline formulae in Excel or as static sparklines in any Office document (Word, PowerPoint, Excel). The result of our redesign is a dialog 60% smaller than before which ensures 60% more focus on the essential process of creating information dense data representations with sparklines.

Improved preview function
Usability in SparkMaker 4 is further increased through a new preview field which is now available for sparkline functions, too. While you define any type of sparkline, you will see - at all times - an exact representation of your forthcoming sparkline based on current settings.

Tickering sparklines
For those who want to go beyond static displays of sparklines, SparkMaker offers a built-in ticker feature: it exports selected sparklines to an HTML ticker which users can easily integrate into Intranets or other web publications. This feature can help raising awareness for your data. Information in a sparklined ticker is distributed in a non-intrusive way using only a small portion of the current screen real estate.

Office 2007 support
SparkMaker 4 seamlessly integrates into heterogeneous IT business environments, since it supports all currently relevant Office versions: Office XP, Office 2003 and the brand-new Office 2007 suite.

Improved Performance
Technical efficiency for reporting has been improved with new algorithms that provide faster calculation of multiple sparklines in Excel sheets and avoid unnecessary recalculations.

SparkMaker for Excel-based OLAP front-ends
You are using an OLAP database to conveniently store your data instead of creating numberless Excel sheets? Or you employ a data warehouse based on OLAP technology to realize analyses of your business data? In case you are using an Excel front-end to access your OLAP database, you should use SparkMaker to enhance reports and analyses which you create from your OLAP database. All sparkline functions can read data from cells which display data from your OLAP database. For more information on supported OLAP databases check here.

Here are some key features of "Bissantz SparkMaker":

· Supports various sparkline types: bars, lines, winner/loser (whiskers), pies
· Creates sparklines directly in your Excel, Word, and PowerPoint documents
· Generates sparklines either textually using TrueType Fonts or as vector-based images (Enhanced Metafile Format)
· User-defined functions for dynamic sparkline updates in Excel XP, 2003 and 2007
· Flexible scaling of sparklines
· Additional statistical information: standard deviation, trend
· Multiple formatting options, like color and landmark values
· New: now also available in sparkline functions
· Allows for high quality print-outs
· Exports to popular bitmap image file formats: BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIFF
· Supports Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007

Requirements:

· Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

Limitations:

· 30-day trial
· The remaining functionality of an expired trial version of SparkMaker 4 constitutes the Free edition of SparkMaker: it is free of charge for private, academic and commercial purposes.