In an excel spreadsheet, I have a series of data. Each "batch" of data has 24
cells, but there are only 2 cells out of each 24 whose values I want to plot
on a line graph on a separate sheet in the same file. The first of these
contains a weekly date range and the second contains a percentage. For
example:

4/7/08-4/13/08 44%
3/31/08-4/6/08 39%
3/24/08-3/30/08 51%

Notice that the data is going backwards in time. There are currently 16
batches of data, going back weekly to the beginning of 2008. Each week,
a new batch of data will be added at the top of the sheet.

I have created the line graph, and the Y axis is just fine, correctly
showing 10%, 20%, etc. going upwards from zero, and the values are plotted
correctly. I'm having trouble with the X axis, though. I did figure out how
to get the data to reverse order, so that week 1 in January starts at the
left and moves to the right until it reaches the 16th week in April. However,
I can't figure out how to get the correct labels on the X axis. Right now
they are simply numbers (16, 15, 14,
13, etc. ending at 1) What I want the labels to say are the date ranges. For
instance, the first X axis label should be 12/31/07-1/6/08, the second should
be 1/7/08-1/13/08, etc., until the 16th label, which should be
4/17/08-4/13/08. In other words, the labels on the X axis, moving from left
to right, should be the values in the following cells from the datasheet:
A110, A103, A96, etc. through A10 and finally A3.

I can't figure out how to "tell" Excel to go to those cells to get the
labels for the X axis. I have tried under "Format Axis" but there doesn't
seem to be anywhere for me to enter cell references.

Any help would be appreciated.

Marlene

Make sure it's a line chart, not an XY chart. XY charts cannot display
nonnumeric axis labels.

Excel 97-2003:
Right click the chart, choose Source Data, click on the Series tab. Click in
the Category Labels box, and select the range with the date labels.

Excel 2007:
Right click the chart, choose Select Data, click on the Edit button under
the Category (X) Axis Labels, then delete any references in the box and
select the range with the date labels.

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


"Marlene" wrote in message
...
In an excel spreadsheet, I have a series of data. Each "batch" of data has
24
cells, but there are only 2 cells out of each 24 whose values I want to
plot
on a line graph on a separate sheet in the same file. The first of these
contains a weekly date range and the second contains a percentage. For
example:

4/7/08-4/13/08 44%
3/31/08-4/6/08 39%
3/24/08-3/30/08 51%

Notice that the data is going backwards in time. There are currently 16
batches of data, going back weekly to the beginning of 2008. Each week,
a new batch of data will be added at the top of the sheet.

I have created the line graph, and the Y axis is just fine, correctly
showing 10%, 20%, etc. going upwards from zero, and the values are plotted
correctly. I'm having trouble with the X axis, though. I did figure out
how
to get the data to reverse order, so that week 1 in January starts at the
left and moves to the right until it reaches the 16th week in April.
However,
I can't figure out how to get the correct labels on the X axis. Right now
they are simply numbers (16, 15, 14,
13, etc. ending at 1) What I want the labels to say are the date ranges.
For
instance, the first X axis label should be 12/31/07-1/6/08, the second
should
be 1/7/08-1/13/08, etc., until the 16th label, which should be
4/17/08-4/13/08. In other words, the labels on the X axis, moving from
left
to right, should be the values in the following cells from the datasheet:
A110, A103, A96, etc. through A10 and finally A3.

I can't figure out how to "tell" Excel to go to those cells to get the
labels for the X axis. I have tried under "Format Axis" but there doesn't
seem to be anywhere for me to enter cell references.

Any help would be appreciated.

Marlene