Designating X and Y axis

[Dave F]

I have a very simple question. I want to create a
simple line chart using excel. I want to plot
column 'A'on the 'Y' axis and column 'B' on the 'X'
axis. I (along with others with Excel experience) have
searched the 'help' information at great length and can't
figure out how to do this. It seems like it should be
very simple.
Thanks for any help.
Dave

 

[Dave F]

Dan

Thank you very much. Your suggestion appears to do the
trick. Your suggestion to use 'Scatter plot' was the
key. I was selecting 'Line plot' previously and that
would only plot the point # (1,2,3,4,5....) vs the value
of the point itself.
Anyway, thanks again. I knew there must be a simple
answer to my question. I appreiciate the prompt straight
forward help.

Thanks again Dan
Dave

 

[Jon Peltier]

Dave -

A few tips will help you in the future.

(a) XY Scatter charts are in general preferred over Line charts, at
least for what I use charts for.
(b) Put your X values to the left of your Y values.
(c) Put a label in the cell above every column of your data range for
the Y values only, and leave the cell above the X values blank. Select
the top row along with the other data when making a chart, and Excel
will use the first column (under the blank cell) for X values (or
category names in a Line chart), and the first row (beside the blank
cell) for the names of the series.

Item (c) is probably the most helpful hint. For more tips, check out my
newly published article, Microsoft Excel Charting FAQs, in the September
TechTrax e-zine:

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=209

- Jon