EXCEL: Creating graphics controllable by events in spreadsheet?

Question

I am wondering if there is way to create or import graphics in MS Office Excel, and then control its properties by script.

For example imagine a map of world on the right hand side and a spreadsheet with countries on the left, if user would hover mouse over a country in spreadsheet it would change color in the image. Change of color in this case would be preferably done by calling something like: country_5.outline.color = "#F00", rather than exchanging the country image for a different one, or applying some sort of a filter overlay.

This will not necessarily be the exact case, but i figured once there is way to control properties of an object by functions ran by events triggered by user mouse movements, anything can be done.

If there is, just poke me in the right direction please.

Req: By Script I mean JS, or something with similar syntax. By Graphic I mean shape of a color with a border of thickness and color.In an ideal case this would be an adobe Illustrator file and I would be able to access its properties as I am in AI.

Answer 1

Two things to note:

1, Excel is not about creating printed-documents or interactive-documents. Yes, there is some limited capabilities for doing such... but it's more about creating an interface for gathering data and doing some basic number-crunching and doing some basic reporting. In similar comparison, Adobe Illustrator is about creating printed/presented documents and very little to do with number-crunching & reporting. There are more specialized tools for every task. With that being said, here comes #2.

2, there are several ways you can accomplish this using the built in VBA framework (visual-basic for applications). If you don't know enough about VBA to accomplish this, then you should probably redirect your question towards the programming forums. Something like this is not a simple undertaking, and not a simple matter of drag & drop.