Why would they drop custom error bars from Excel 2008? I just checked, they are there in 2007 (ie for Windows, took ages to find them mind you, god awfull interface now). I can import an old spreadsheet from Excel 2004 which has errors calculated in cells next to each x-y data point. Is this lack of error bars to give 'parity' with Apple's Numbers which also lacks full error bars? It is getting real tough to do science on MacOSX.