setting x-axis labels

I have been trying to select the x-axis data labels. It works ok up to a
point then clears out all previous selections. Some of the charts will allow
me to select all the data ranges I want but others don't. Why is this
happening? I have a worksheet with 35 charts on it. Is there some kind of
limit?

Are you holding the CTRL key and selecting one cell at a time? Excel is building the
series formula one cell at a time, with a prefix of the sheet name for each cell
address. Instead of your series formula being nice and compact like this:

=SERIES("H",Sheet1!$A$2:$A$10,Sheet1!$H$2:$H$10,2)

it looks like this:

=SERIES(Sheet1!$H$1,(Sheet1!$A$2,Sheet1!$A$3,Sheet1!$A$4,Sheet1!$A$5,Sheet1!$A$6,Sheet1!$A$7,Sheet1!$A$8,Sheet1!$A$9,Sheet1!$A$10),(Sheet1!$H$2,Sheet1!$H$3,Sheet1!$H$4,Sheet1!$H$5,Sheet1!$H$6,Sheet1!$H$7,Sheet1!$H$8,Sheet1!$H$9,Sheet1!$H$10),1)

A series formula has a maximum allowed length of around 1024 characters, but more
limiting is the maximum length of the X values and Y values part of the formula,
which is a shade under 256.

Try to get all your data into a contiguous range so you can reference your ranges
with a single cell reference.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______

lschuh wrote:

> I have been trying to select the x-axis data labels. It works ok up to a
> point then clears out all previous selections. Some of the charts will allow
> me to select all the data ranges I want but others don't. Why is this
> happening? I have a worksheet with 35 charts on it. Is there some kind of
> limit?

Thank you. I was doing the control thing. When you go to the help it
appears that you can have practically an unlimited amount of data points with
no mention of max. char limits. I should have done what you suggested but
brought the data in from access and did not want to reformat everything.

"Jon Peltier" wrote:

> Are you holding the CTRL key and selecting one cell at a time? Excel is building the
> series formula one cell at a time, with a prefix of the sheet name for each cell
> address. Instead of your series formula being nice and compact like this:
>
> =SERIES("H",Sheet1!$A$2:$A$10,Sheet1!$H$2:$H$10,2)
>
> it looks like this:
>
> =SERIES(Sheet1!$H$1,(Sheet1!$A$2,Sheet1!$A$3,Sheet1!$A$4,Sheet1!$A$5,Sheet1!$A$6,Sheet1!$A$7,Sheet1!$A$8,Sheet1!$A$9,Sheet1!$A$10),(Sheet1!$H$2,Sheet1!$H$3,Sheet1!$H$4,Sheet1!$H$5,Sheet1!$H$6,Sheet1!$H$7,Sheet1!$H$8,Sheet1!$H$9,Sheet1!$H$10),1)
>
> A series formula has a maximum allowed length of around 1024 characters, but more
> limiting is the maximum length of the X values and Y values part of the formula,
> which is a shade under 256.
>
> Try to get all your data into a contiguous range so you can reference your ranges
> with a single cell reference.
>
> - Jon
> -------
> Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
> Peltier Technical Services
> Tutorials and Custom Solutions
> http://PeltierTech.com/
> _______
>
> lschuh wrote:
>
> > I have been trying to select the x-axis data labels. It works ok up to a
> > point then clears out all previous selections. Some of the charts will allow
> > me to select all the data ranges I want but others don't. Why is this
> > happening? I have a worksheet with 35 charts on it. Is there some kind of
> > limit?
>
>