B
Bob Smith
These notes are for charting beginners who may find
Excel's approach regarding the x-axis to be
un-intuitive.
For many chart types in Excel the x-axis is treated as
a set of equally spaced points. It's not like the
graphs you did in junior high school. The default
behavior of Excel is to take a selected column or row
of data and plot it equally spaced on the x-axis,
labeling the first data point "1", and so on. That's
what you get if you select a range in one column/row of
data and hit F-11.
What if you don't want to have the x-axis labeled "1",
"2", "3", etc?
To get your x-axis labelled properly you need to tell
Excel where to get the label data by specifying a cell
range during the Chart Wizard or later. If your y-axis
data is in columns, you probably have a corresponding
column containing what you previously thought of as
x-axis data. Now you should start thinking of it as
"Category (X) Axis Labels".
Step 2 of 4 of the Chart Wizard shows the previously
selected y-value data range. Click on the "Series" tab
and click on the icon in the Category (X) Axis Labels.
Now select the range of cells that will be your
x-values or category labels. Hit enter and the range
will appear in the box. Continue on with the Chart
Wizard.
To add labels after you have created the chart, right
click on the chart, and select Source Data/Series Tab,
Category (X) Axis Labels, and follow the procedure
above.
Tuning the x-axis labeling is done by selecting the
x-axis on the chart, right click, Format Axis/Scale
Tab. Same for the y-axis.
Suppose you want a graph where the x-axis has
data points not equally spaced?
To get a chart where the x-axis is a data axis rather
than "categories", select "XY (Scatter)" chart. To
connect the dots, after the chart is generated click
on a data point and select Format Data, and select
Patterns Tab/line/automatic.
Also, if your x-axis is in dates, Excel can plot
non-equally spaced using the "time-scale" option.
Excel's approach regarding the x-axis to be
un-intuitive.
For many chart types in Excel the x-axis is treated as
a set of equally spaced points. It's not like the
graphs you did in junior high school. The default
behavior of Excel is to take a selected column or row
of data and plot it equally spaced on the x-axis,
labeling the first data point "1", and so on. That's
what you get if you select a range in one column/row of
data and hit F-11.
What if you don't want to have the x-axis labeled "1",
"2", "3", etc?
To get your x-axis labelled properly you need to tell
Excel where to get the label data by specifying a cell
range during the Chart Wizard or later. If your y-axis
data is in columns, you probably have a corresponding
column containing what you previously thought of as
x-axis data. Now you should start thinking of it as
"Category (X) Axis Labels".
Step 2 of 4 of the Chart Wizard shows the previously
selected y-value data range. Click on the "Series" tab
and click on the icon in the Category (X) Axis Labels.
Now select the range of cells that will be your
x-values or category labels. Hit enter and the range
will appear in the box. Continue on with the Chart
Wizard.
To add labels after you have created the chart, right
click on the chart, and select Source Data/Series Tab,
Category (X) Axis Labels, and follow the procedure
above.
Tuning the x-axis labeling is done by selecting the
x-axis on the chart, right click, Format Axis/Scale
Tab. Same for the y-axis.
Suppose you want a graph where the x-axis has
data points not equally spaced?
To get a chart where the x-axis is a data axis rather
than "categories", select "XY (Scatter)" chart. To
connect the dots, after the chart is generated click
on a data point and select Format Data, and select
Patterns Tab/line/automatic.
Also, if your x-axis is in dates, Excel can plot
non-equally spaced using the "time-scale" option.