..problems with drawing scater plot after coping

[Margots]

hi,
I am doing homework for Econ class and we have to use banch of data
from UN web site. So i download the exel tables from their website adn
then copied the neccesary coloms from one excel to another and now i
am tring to draw a scatter plot, but it will not let or another words
draw something wierd. when i type the same values next to the columns
and try to draw a scatter plot, it works. I also notice that i can not
change the format on those copied rows of data. Can any one can give a
hint?
Thanks
Margots

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Margots,

It's possible that you have text, not numbers, from the web table. Try
selecting the cells, Edit - Clear - Formats (you can undo this in a moment
to restore your formatting). If the numbers become left-aligned, then
they're text. If right-aligned, they're numbers.

 

[Jon Peltier]

And if they turn out to be text, you can convert them. Copy a blank
cell, select the misbehaving numbers, choose Paste Special from the Edit
menu, and select Values, Operation - Add.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______