Why does X axis become another data series?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Philip Reece-Heal
  • Start date Start date
P

Philip Reece-Heal

Take the following data to use with Chart Wizard to get a chart:

Distance height
0 5
5 4
8 3
9 6
12 7
13 8


If I highlight all data including column titles, the chart wizard produces
both columns as Series, whereas I want Distance column to be X axis values.
Why is this?

If I delete the column heading 'Distance' and leave that cell blank it works
OK, as it does if 1st column contains dates.

It is annoying when I want to quickly highlight data in a spreadsheet to
produce a chart .

Anybody got any simple solution?

Regards

Phiulip
 
Simple solution, as you've found, is to leave the X axis column heading
blank until after you've produced your chart, and then fill it in.
 
If you make an XY chart, which suits this data better than other chart
types, Excel will automatically use the first column for the X values.

If you make another chart type, the first column must be obviously
different: date format, text format, missing the label in the first row.

Easier than omitting the X values from the selected range and filling it
in later is to make an XY chart, then change it to the chart type you
want. As I said, though, your sample data will be best displayed in an
XY chart, because both X and Y have non-consecutive numerical values.

- Jon
 
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