area charts in excel 2008 - how to add x-axis labels?

On Apr 13, 9:28 am, Carl Witthoft <c... RemoveThis @witthoft.com> wrote:
> In article
> <85610ebf-01d4-4e8e-8f5e-15170c64c... RemoveThis @n1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
>
> just.call.me.je... RemoveThis @gmail.com wrote:
> > > Actually found the solution
> > > athttp://www.mackb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/excel/4535/Cannot-add-data-as-lab....
> > > Click on the data series you want to add labels for. A formula like
> > > this "=SERIES(,,Sheet1!$Q$20:$Q$25,1)" should appear. Go between the
> > > second and third comma and select the range with your labels. Thank
> > > you, Microsoft!
>
> > This worked, but didn't give me a quite the graph I wanted. It's been
> > a while since I made a graph in Excel, but my data for the x-axis is
> > units sold, and it's not always the same interval (the chart is break-
> > even data).
>
> > My Units Sold data goes 0, 10, 20, etc.. in intervals of ten, until
> > 100, 120, 140, 160. This gives me a steeper curve after 100, which
> > I'm sure did not used to happen in earlier versions of Excel, as it
> > creates an awfully confusing graph.
>
> > The scale section of the x-axis format window doesn't offer any help
> > at all on making my graph look right.
>
> > -J
>
> You need to select ScatterPlot as the chart type.
>
> --
> Team EM to the rescue! http://www.team-em.com

Here is the work-around I use. This appears to work for any chart type
but I figured it out while building a column chart.
In the spreadsheet Column A had numbers that I wanted to be the x axis
labels. Column B had the values I wanted for the bars in the chart.
Office 2008 tries to make these two data variables.

I thought Excel might make Column A into x axis labels if I changed
Column A category type (Format/Cells/Category) to Text instead of
General. That didn't work. Just for interest's sake I changed the
category to Date and surprisingly it did work. So, apparently if Excel
doesn't believe that there are numbers (for some reason numbers
formated as text are still numbers) in the column it will change them
to labels.

I changed Column A back to General because I didn't want dates but I
put a hard space (option-space) in the first and last cells of Column
A and Excel turned the entire Column A into x axis labels. All was
well except that the spacing of the labels for the first and last bar
on the chart were slightly off. So I put the non-printing text in a
cell above my first Column A number and also in a cell below the last
number. This solution produces a blank column at the begging and end
of the chart but at least the label spacing is correct.

I have not experimented with other characters to see if I can find
ones that convince Excel that this is text but don't change the
spacing. My experience is that I am putting in this amount of time to
build work-arounds in many many places in Office 2008.

On Apr 17, 6:41 am, jbcup....TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
> On Apr 13, 9:28 am, Carl Witthoft <c....TakeThisOut@witthoft.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > In article
> > <85610ebf-01d4-4e8e-8f5e-15170c64c....TakeThisOut@n1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>,
>
> > just.call.me.je....TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > Actually found the solution
> > > > athttp://www.mackb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/excel/4535/Cannot-add-data-as-lab....
> > > > Click on the data series you want to add labels for. A formula like
> > > > this "=SERIES(,,Sheet1!$Q$20:$Q$25,1)" should appear. Go between the
> > > > second and third comma and select the range with your labels. Thank
> > > > you, Microsoft!
>
> > > This worked, but didn't give me a quite the graph I wanted. It's been
> > > a while since I made a graph in Excel, but my data for the x-axis is
> > > units sold, and it's not always the same interval (the chart is break-
> > > even data).
>
> > > My Units Sold data goes 0, 10, 20, etc.. in intervals of ten, until
> > > 100, 120, 140, 160. This gives me a steeper curve after 100, which
> > > I'm sure did not used to happen in earlier versions of Excel, as it
> > > creates an awfully confusing graph.
>
> > > The scale section of the x-axis format window doesn't offer any help
> > > at all on making my graph look right.
>
> > > -J
>
> > You need to select ScatterPlot as the chart type.
>
> > --
> > Team EM to the rescue! http://www.team-em.com
>
> Here is the work-around I use. This appears to work for any chart type
> but I figured it out while building a column chart.
> In the spreadsheet Column A had numbers that I wanted to be the x axis
> labels. Column B had the values I wanted for the bars in the chart.
> Office 2008 tries to make these two data variables.
>
> I thought Excel might make Column A into x axis labels if I changed
> Column A category type (Format/Cells/Category) to Text instead of
> General. That didn't work. Just for interest's sake I changed the
> category to Date and surprisingly it did work. So, apparently if Excel
> doesn't believe that there are numbers (for some reason numbers
> formated as text are still numbers) in the column it will change them
> to labels.
>
> I changed Column A back to General because I didn't want dates but I
> put a hard space (option-space) in the first and last cells of Column
> A and Excel turned the entire Column A into x axis labels. All was
> well except that the spacing of the labels for the first and last bar
> on the chart were slightly off. So I put the non-printing text in a
> cell above my first Column A number and also in a cell below the last
> number. This solution produces a blank column at the begging and end
> of the chart but at least the label spacing is correct.
>
> I have not experimented with other characters to see if I can find
> ones that convince Excel that this is text but don't change the
> spacing. My experience is that I am putting in this amount of time to
> build work-arounds in many many places in Office 2008.

I found it, it's in the Toolbox, if if you look at the Chart Options
drop down when the chart is selected. There is a Titles menu drop
down, select: Vertical (value) Axis for instance, and type in the
label below it that you want for your chart. It took me ages to find
it too...

Mark.