"Jon Peltier" wrote:

Realize you have to add a series, then change its type. Start by using the
column data to create a column chart. Then add the X and Y data for the XY
series, which Excel at first adds as a column chart, and it usually looks
awful. Select the added series, and use Chart Type on the Chart menu to
change it to an XY type.


Hi Jon,

Thanks for your reply.

I ticked yes, this answers my question, but on closer inspection I see that
it doesn't quite do what I want.

Following your instructions gives me scatter data using a secondary x-axis
(which for some reason I hadn't so far been able to do - and this at least
gives better results).

In the example I gave in my original post, the column data uses a scale from
-3 to 3 and the scatter data used a scale from -3.5 to 3.5.

With some fiddling, I can add an extra blank category either side of the
column data so it also goes from -3.5 to 3.5 and then format the secondary x
axis so that -t goes from -3.75 to 3.75, which gives me the same scale on the
two axes (since the column widths are 0.5). I can jump through more hoops
(turn off tick marks and tick labels) to hide most elements of this secondary
axis, producing a reasonable graph.

It is not straight forward to get the two scales to line up because one is
categorical and one is continuous. I really want the column data to be on a
continuous sort of axis at the same scale as the scatter data.

But maybe this is as good as Excel can do.

cheers,

dc