Sounds like you have cells for the missing values, but a formula that
returns "" where there is no explicit value. Change "" in your formula to
NA():

=IF(<something,<some value, NA())

This puts an ugly #N/A in the sheet, but it is not plotted in a line or XY
chart.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
http://PeltierTech.com/WordPress/
_______


"gerry" wrote in message
...
I have data in an Excel s/s and one of the sets of data has a different
start
date. That is, i have 3 series that have data from 1991 - 2007 and a
fourth
that has data from 1996-2007. How do I format this so as not to have a
line
for the fourth data that runs along the x-axis and then steeply up to the
first values in 1996

thanks for your help