Excel won't use my data on the x-axis of a scatter plot

**Sabina** · 03-12-2012, 05:48 AM

Hi everyone!

I'm trying to make a scatter plot of the data below. I want to have the first column as the x-axis and the second as the y-axis. When I make a scatter of this however, Excel uses the numbers 1-20 as x-axis.

I have already checked that the data in the left column is listed as "number" and not text.

I suspect the problem is that the range of data is quite wide. Does anyone know if there is possible to plot this?

Regards, Sabina

x-axis:

57382,00
71833,00
45655,00
111813,00
109509,00
31106,00
33282,00
1*670 817
34681,00
686551,00
3*004 120
1438229,00
928210,00
1040229,00
1*609 217
36262,00
623404,00
661237,00
1256461,00
1*105 504

Y-axis:

17 537
18 168
7 832
18 168
12 294
2 426
993
26 219
500
8 219
29 940
10 287
5 966
6 621
9 943
219
3 386
3 217
5 316
4 498

**Richard Buttrey** · 03-12-2012, 05:58 AM

Hi,
I suggest you upload the actual workbook. The number of columns seems to vary between 3 & 5. Are you really saying that the data you want is sometimes in the third column and sometimes the fifth?

Regards

**Sabina** · 03-12-2012, 06:11 AM

Hi!

Here's the workbook. There's only two columns, but something happened when I pasted them. Hope this will be easier to see!

Sabina

**Richard Buttrey** · 03-12-2012, 06:22 AM

Hi,

See the attached revised workbook.
A9, A12, A16 & A21 were not numbers.

Regards

**Sabina** · 03-12-2012, 06:31 AM

Wow! Thank you! It works now!

But it's strange! When I look in the workbook you posted, column A is listed as "custom". In my original file, all cells in column A are listed as "number". But when I do the same ISNUMBER check as you did, it turns out that they were in fact not numbers... How can that be??

Thank you so much for the help!

Sabina

**Richard Buttrey** · 03-12-2012, 06:55 AM

Hi,

They weren't numbers because they had a space character within the 'number' which automatically makes them text.

Just because when you look at a cell and see its format is set to number, it does not mean or imply that it is actually a number.
All it means is that IF the cell IS a number it will be formatted according to the number format you define.

Regards