Barchart secondary axis always stacked

[Ming Hsu]

I'm having a really frustrating time with trying to make a barchart with a
secondary axis. The problem is that both bar and column charts appear to
allow only stacked bars/columns to be used with a secondary axis. I would
like the columns to be right next to each other, and there appears to be no
way to do this in Excel 2008!

 

[Jessica Lambert [MSFT]]

Hi Ming,
I tried this out tonight and I'm seeing the same thing that I think you are:
when you move one of the data series to the secondary axis it draws it right
on top of the other, and covers up some of the other bars or columns! The
same behavior occurs in the Windows versions of Excel, as well as the
previous versions 2003/2004. Unfortunately this means it's not likely to
change this version, but I've logged a suggestion that we consider a way to
do this in a future version. Sorry. :-(


Would it work to have one series as columns and one as a line? That would
allow you to see both of the series at the same time. You might have to
switch the order to get the line in front, but that's easily done in the
Format Data Series dialog's Order pane.

--
Jessica Wallace

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[Ming Hsu]

Thanks Jessica, that is exactly what I was describing. Your solution
definitely works, but it didn't suit the particular dataset I was looking to
plot.

I was able to get the result I was looking for by adding an empty series and
setting that to a secondary axis. Of course I had to multiple the original
secondary axis series by a constant and then resetting the secondary axis
manually to match what it was supposed to be. All in all pretty tedious not
really worthwhile doing.