Need to create a comparative scatter plot of several items

[gary7]

I'm using scatter plots to compare various technical specifications of 20
products.
One example is price v. storage capacity, with price on the x-axis and
storage capacity on the y-axis. Each product will be represented as a point
on the graph, based on its price and capacity.

Now for the tricky part: I want all of the data points ("markers") to be the
same shape and color. And I want to use the "series name" as each point's
data label. In other words, each point is its own "series".

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to do this in Excel. If I plot the data
as a single series, I can't easily associate the "product name" with each
point (I can add text next to each point, but... argh... aren't computers
supposed to work for *us*? .

I can plot each point as an individual series, but then I have to manually
"Add" each data point to the graph... click, click, click... then reformat
each point so they're all the same... click, click, click... then add data
label and change it to "series name"... click, click, click. Did I mention
that the "repeat" command does not work on most changes made via "Format Data
Series..."? Grrrr...

Or is there an easier way?

 

[Jon Peltier]

Make it a single series, so the formatting is the same. Put the labels into
a third column, next to X and Y. Use one of these free utilities to apply
the labels to the data points:

Rob Bovey's Chart Labeler, http://appspro.com/Utilities/ChartLabeler.htm
John Walkenbach's Chart Tools,
http://www.j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/charttools.htm