Plotting Expenses

**jomili** · 04-11-2011, 05:21 PM

I'm trying to create a stacked column chart, and I'm having trouble trying to get things to scale properly. My expensed, encumbered, and preencumbered amounts range from nothing to millions of dollars, and I have about 20 categories in my charts. To get them to show, reasonably, I want to use the logarithmic scale. However, my zero amounts mess that up, as Excel gives a messsage that I can't use zeros in a logarithmic scale. How would I get the chart to ignore my zero amounts, or how would I get my millions and my 1 and 2 cent amounts to coexist in the same chart otherwise? Any help is highly appreciated.

Thanks,
John

**jomili** · 04-19-2011, 09:08 AM

No response on this charting question for over a week. Help is still requested.

**Andy Pope** · 04-19-2011, 09:13 AM

Rather than use the Log scale and encounter the warning message use a log formula to calculate the values on the worksheet and plot the results.

You will need to add a dummy xy-scatter to build a useful value axis.

Or adjust the zero values to be a very small positive value.

**jomili** · 04-19-2011, 09:17 AM

Andy,

Thanks for responding. I'm not familiar enough with charting to fully understand what you mean by "You will need to add a dummy xy-scatter to build a useful value axis.". Also, I'm not familiar with log formulas; can you point me to some help on that one?

Thanks loads!