"Del Cotter" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 10 Sep 2008, in microsoft.public.excel.charting,
janet said:
I am trying to create an x-y scatter chart where both the x values and the
y
values are dates. I highlight the 2 adjacent columns of date data and
click
on InsertScatter. Instead of a scatter graph, I get a line chart with 2
lines (the two data columns). The x values on the graph are simply a
count
of the data points as in a line chart.

It's not a line chart, as you can see by going to the x axis Format Scale
dialogue. You'll see the scale is an interval scale instead of the
characteristic Line Chart category scale.

What you've done is labelled both columns, so the wizard thinks you're
inserting two y series and no x. Move the left column heading temporarily
out of that cell and run the wizard again with the cell blank. The wizard
will properly pick up the x scale series then, and you can move the column
header back.

Normally when you create an XY chart, Excel uses the first column as X
values, regardless of the presence or absence of any labels. This is in
contrast to the behavior when creating a Line chart. I think the date
formatting of the data interferes with Excel's range parsing algorithms, so
the XY chart in this one case behaves like a line chart.

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