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Line chart categoray axis labels issue - Excel 2007
Hi,
I have two problems (bugs perhaps) that I need o find a way to work around in Excel 2007. They both concern the category (x) axis (text) labels in line charts. I normally shy away from line charts entirely but, in the given instance I need to use them. First question: when you first create the line chart, and when you set the labels for the category axis, Excel automatically rotates the labels to get them to fit as well as possible. However, if you go in to the Format Axis AlignmentCustom Angle box and enter a value, I can find no way of reenabling Excels automatic selection of rotation. Even deleting the axis, and then recreating it, does not reactivate this automatic feature. Previous version of Excel had a radio button for "automatic" but I cannot find this in Excel 2007... Is there any way of reenabling the automatic rotation behaviour? Second (more serious) question. I am using a line series with text category axis to plot some time data for different years. As I am only using 3 months for each year, I do not want to use a time series (most of the graph space is then occupied by periods with no data). When I select my x axis label range, everything is OK if this range is fully occupied: by selecting appropriate entries for Format AxisAxis OptionsInterval between tick marks and ....specify interval unit, I can get appropriately distributed ticks (each representing, say, 1 week) and adequately spaced labels. However, I wanted more control over the tick labels so I have created a further range with a formula which results in a blank unless the original label is for the first or 15th of a month at (near) midnight. So far so good, but when I make the line chart refer to this range, which is predominantly blank (""), the chart now shows only the first label or, by playing with the ...specify interval unit setting, I can perhaps get it to show the first two tick labels but under no circumstances all of them (there are about 30 in total, fairly evenly distributed along the range but corresponding to useful dates). In previous versions of Excel (I have just tried to make sure that this is the case), it would work well once this new range is selected and the tick label spacing set to 1 but not in Excel 2007... I have even tried copying the range with the formulae to a new range and pasting it as values only (no difference) and even going in and deleting all the blank cells in the range between consecutive labels but nothing changes... Is this behaviour common and is there a work around??? Any help very gratefully received as I have sort of hit a brick wall with this and, other than going back to Excel 2003m which I would for various reasons be loathed to do, cannot think of anything else to try... Many thanks and best wishes, Boris. |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Line chart categoray axis labels issue - Excel 2007
Hi,
Hate to be a party pooper, but could you simplify this verbose post, you generally will find that if the post is too long, you won't get an answer. "Boris" wrote: Hi, I have two problems (bugs perhaps) that I need o find a way to work around in Excel 2007. They both concern the category (x) axis (text) labels in line charts. I normally shy away from line charts entirely but, in the given instance I need to use them. First question: when you first create the line chart, and when you set the labels for the category axis, Excel automatically rotates the labels to get them to fit as well as possible. However, if you go in to the Format Axis AlignmentCustom Angle box and enter a value, I can find no way of reenabling Excels automatic selection of rotation. Even deleting the axis, and then recreating it, does not reactivate this automatic feature. Previous version of Excel had a radio button for "automatic" but I cannot find this in Excel 2007... Is there any way of reenabling the automatic rotation behaviour? Second (more serious) question. I am using a line series with text category axis to plot some time data for different years. As I am only using 3 months for each year, I do not want to use a time series (most of the graph space is then occupied by periods with no data). When I select my x axis label range, everything is OK if this range is fully occupied: by selecting appropriate entries for Format AxisAxis OptionsInterval between tick marks and ...specify interval unit, I can get appropriately distributed ticks (each representing, say, 1 week) and adequately spaced labels. However, I wanted more control over the tick labels so I have created a further range with a formula which results in a blank unless the original label is for the first or 15th of a month at (near) midnight. So far so good, but when I make the line chart refer to this range, which is predominantly blank (""), the chart now shows only the first label or, by playing with the ...specify interval unit setting, I can perhaps get it to show the first two tick labels but under no circumstances all of them (there are about 30 in total, fairly evenly distributed along the range but corresponding to useful dates). In previous versions of Excel (I have just tried to make sure that this is the case), it would work well once this new range is selected and the tick label spacing set to 1 but not in Excel 2007... I have even tried copying the range with the formulae to a new range and pasting it as values only (no difference) and even going in and deleting all the blank cells in the range between consecutive labels but nothing changes... Is this behaviour common and is there a work around??? Any help very gratefully received as I have sort of hit a brick wall with this and, other than going back to Excel 2003m which I would for various reasons be loathed to do, cannot think of anything else to try... Many thanks and best wishes, Boris. |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
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Line chart categoray axis labels issue - Excel 2007
Thanks Cheers, here goes... (I will also submit the wording below as 2 new
queries... 1/ Is there any way in Excel 2007 of re-enabling the automatic (best fit) rotation feature on category values text axes after you have entered a custom angle (the simple checkbox that existed in previous versions is no longer there and the program will not allow you to remove a custom angle completely once one has been set - only to change it)? 2/ I have about 7000 data points in a line series and have a column of data with sporadic labels and selected positions. Again, in Excel 2007, selecting his range (7000 rows, 30 if which have a label) as the category labels and setting the label spacing as one, I can only get the very first label to show on the chart. By playing around with the label spacing, I can sometimes get the first 2 labels to display (but cannot understand why) but cannot get all my labels to display as expected (and as they would under previous versions of Excel). Can anyone tell me how to get all my labels to display (at their appropriate positions)? Many thanks. Best wishes, Boris. "Cheers," wrote: Hi, Hate to be a party pooper, but could you simplify this verbose post, you generally will find that if the post is too long, you won't get an answer. "Boris" wrote: Hi, I have two problems (bugs perhaps) that I need o find a way to work around in Excel 2007. They both concern the category (x) axis (text) labels in line charts. I normally shy away from line charts entirely but, in the given instance I need to use them. First question: when you first create the line chart, and when you set the labels for the category axis, Excel automatically rotates the labels to get them to fit as well as possible. However, if you go in to the Format Axis AlignmentCustom Angle box and enter a value, I can find no way of reenabling Excels automatic selection of rotation. Even deleting the axis, and then recreating it, does not reactivate this automatic feature. Previous version of Excel had a radio button for "automatic" but I cannot find this in Excel 2007... Is there any way of reenabling the automatic rotation behaviour? Second (more serious) question. I am using a line series with text category axis to plot some time data for different years. As I am only using 3 months for each year, I do not want to use a time series (most of the graph space is then occupied by periods with no data). When I select my x axis label range, everything is OK if this range is fully occupied: by selecting appropriate entries for Format AxisAxis OptionsInterval between tick marks and ...specify interval unit, I can get appropriately distributed ticks (each representing, say, 1 week) and adequately spaced labels. However, I wanted more control over the tick labels so I have created a further range with a formula which results in a blank unless the original label is for the first or 15th of a month at (near) midnight. So far so good, but when I make the line chart refer to this range, which is predominantly blank (""), the chart now shows only the first label or, by playing with the ...specify interval unit setting, I can perhaps get it to show the first two tick labels but under no circumstances all of them (there are about 30 in total, fairly evenly distributed along the range but corresponding to useful dates). In previous versions of Excel (I have just tried to make sure that this is the case), it would work well once this new range is selected and the tick label spacing set to 1 but not in Excel 2007... I have even tried copying the range with the formulae to a new range and pasting it as values only (no difference) and even going in and deleting all the blank cells in the range between consecutive labels but nothing changes... Is this behaviour common and is there a work around??? Any help very gratefully received as I have sort of hit a brick wall with this and, other than going back to Excel 2003m which I would for various reasons be loathed to do, cannot think of anything else to try... Many thanks and best wishes, Boris. |
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