I assume I'm missing something simple here, but the tutorials I've been scrolling don't address this. I'm trying to make what I assume will be pretty basic charts in Excel 2008 for mac. I want my "Year" column to be my horizontal axis, and my "Total VDR" (it stands for violent death rate if you're curious) value to be on left axis, plotted along by year.
Instead chart default seems to be to use the rather uselessly abstract number of the column. I have tried clicking and reassigning the values but can't get any coherent grasp on how to do this. What am I missing? Here's my backwards looking chart.
Go wherever you go on a Mac to define the source data for the chart.
Remove the data series "Year"
for Category (X) axis labels set B2:B235 (adjust to your data )
hth
teylyn
Microsoft MVP - Excel
At Excelforum, you can say "Thank you!" by clicking theicon below the post.
Avoid pie charts with more than two data points. Why? See here (pdf, 559 kb). The only acceptable pie chart is here.
I'm almost there. But when I try to assign that category(x) axis label, it automatically puts up quotes and parenthesis, and instead of displaying the actual years, it displays the abstract "B2:B236".
Is there a formula aspect that I am missing? I included another screen shot.
Thx much.
two possible ways:
1. click on the icon to the right of the field and select the cells with the mouse (delete the existing stuff in the field first)
2. manually type according to the same syntax used for Y values, i.e.
Sheet1!$B$3:$B$236
hth
teylyn
Microsoft MVP - Excel
At Excelforum, you can say "Thank you!" by clicking the
I did method 2 and it worked like a charm. Rock n' roll!
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks