Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Excel 2008 - Chart problem

K

kyranay

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 3, 2008
4
0
Cincinnati, OH
Let me start this off with....Excel '08 is HORRIBLE.

Now, I can not figure out how to add a label to the y-axis. What I mean is, when you chart data there is usually a series of numbers explaining the data and then there is a text label explaining what the Y axis is. For example, if you are charting something in years, the axis will have 1995, 1996, 1997, etc... and then it should have a label saying "years" so that the reader will know that the number refers to a year and not anything else. How do put the word "years" on the stupid graph???

This is a relatively simple task and I don't know why I can't figure it out, but I can't. I tried to just copy my data into Excel '04, but old version won't let me copy the data in. I hate Excel 2008.

Any suggestions?
 
Certainly not an easy one...

OK, if your Toolbox isn't showing, click on it to get it open. Make sure you have the first tab (i.e. Formatting Palette) showing. In the "Chart Options" section, you should have a "Titles" heading with a drop down box. Here you can select either the Horizontal or Vertical Axis and then give it a title in the box below. That should fix it for you.
 
Thank you for the reply, but I do not see a "Chart Options" section in the formatting palet of the toolbox. I need to get this chart finished ASAP, so I just saved it in Excel 2004 format and was able to successfully open it in Excel 2004. I will create what I need there and then I can figure out how to use the new version when I am not under a time crunch. I'm sure they gave the new version all the functions that the old version has (at least I hope so).

Thanks again for your help~
 
I found the chart options tab. They have a lot of options available for the charts and the charts look much different than the '04 version. I already have the graph I need for my presentation, but at least I know how to use the chart options when I start using Excel '08. Thanks for your help!
 
kyranay said:
I found the chart options tab. They have a lot of options available for the charts and the charts look much different than the '04 version. I already have the graph I need for my presentation, but at least I know how to use the chart options when I start using Excel '08. Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

No problem; if you will just indulge me one more point...

I spend all day working with Excel 2007 on Windows so although I will hardly ever use it at home on my Mac (I got a copy via work with the Home Use Program for £17.31 - I thought what the heck) I decided to have a little play. To discover how to answer your question I made a little graph with a year column and population numbers. I must of spent about half an hour trying to get the years to be labelled correctly (i.e. the year and not 1,2,3,4 etc) on the axis with no luck at all. I finally googled it and you have to actually put the data into the formula. If you create a column graph, click on that series so all the columns are selected. If you don't have it available, enable the formula bar. In there you will see the formula for the series which will be something like

Code: 
=SERIES(,,Sheet1!$B2:$B11)

Now, to get the A column to be the values for the axis, add that range to the second slot (you can also use the first slot as a name for that series)

Code: 
=SERIES(Sheet1!$B1,Sheet1!$A2:$A11,Sheet1!$B2:$B11)

Quite ludicrous, and you may never need it but it will save you some time if you do. The forum posts I read did say that selecting the whole data would do this all automatically but I found with my example the only way to do it was this was the above manual method.
 
I needed to do something similar to that for my presentation. My data is actually measuring a radio-label administered for an experiment with cholesterol. I used the years thing as an example b/c I figured people would understand it better. Anyway, I needed the x axis to be labeled (something other than 1,2,3,4) and I had two different groups (which I wanted to be two different colors). I ended up making my bar graphs red and blue (so I had several red and blue bars but no label explaining what exactly they were). Then, I deleted the 1,2,3,4 thing in Excel and added a text box when I copied the graph into Powerpoint. Excel also doesn't have a simple way to show significance. I usually just turn on the "show label" function and then edit it to show an asterisk. You would think they would make that program a little bit more useful for data display.

Also, I upgraded to the '08 version b/c I'm a graduate student and could get it for $8 from the university. Office is way over-priced for what you get.
 
Hi there

I've a serious problem with Excel 2008. Every single time, when I select a chart and try to copy and paste it into Word 2008, Excel quits suddenly. I cannot stop this. I tried restarting, disk repairing, everything. But every single time, it quits. Do you know why.
 
Chart Options

I have a really simple problem that i cannot figure out. I have excel 07 and it will not let me select either chart options or the add trendline feature. I have the chart selected and the option is always grayed out. I am trying to do a trendline for an X/Y chart and am unable.
 
have you found the solution

I got the same problem. I can see chart options but it is grey and I can not click on it - this is such useless software I reckon:(:(:(
 
Here is a sample worksheet that does what you want (I think).
It's a simple plot between year and data. I didn't have to use the SERIES formula to do this some I'm thinking that maybe it isn't correct.

When I click on the chart, the chart options are highlighted in the Toolbox and I can fool with the titles, colors, and other various options.

To get the data to plot correctly, I did have to fix it in the "Select Data..." popup. When I selected both columns and built the chart it didn't guess it right.
 

Attachments

  • year-data-sample.xlsx.zip
    32.1 KB · Views: 392
Excel Chart Option for Ma

Hi There!
I am struggling with Excel 2008 on my Mac, I build my charts, but the button Chart Option is not in bold and I can't access it in order to add tittle, ...
Is there a reason why many of the Excel option are not available on my machine (such as Add Tradeline)? I see them but can't select them!
Thanks in advance! Cheers.
 
AlexDandy said:
Hi There!
I am struggling with Excel 2008 on my Mac, I build my charts, but the button Chart Option is not in bold and I can't access it in order to add tittle, ...
Is there a reason why many of the Excel option are not available on my machine (such as Add Tradeline)? I see them but can't select them!
Thanks in advance! Cheers.
Click to expand...

I'll probably need some more to go on. Where is the "Chart Option" button that is grayed? I've added trend lines as well...
 
Easy Solution to Adding Years as X-axis

CTRL-click on the existing chart --> "Select Data Source" -->
then, where it says "Category (X) axis labels" click/select on your range of years, which should be a separate column of data.

This was killing me for quite a while, and I hope it saves you time!
 
johnsmith2288 said:
I have a really simple problem that i cannot figure out. I have excel 07 and it will not let me select either chart options or the add trendline feature. I have the chart selected and the option is always grayed out. I am trying to do a trendline for an X/Y chart and am unable.
Click to expand...

I was having this problem on excel 08 and thats how i ended up in this forum, still couldn't do the trendline, but after spending a bit of fiddling around, i found that if you click the actual chart within its box, and once this is selected, then click one of the scatter dots, you will then be able to click on chart options and then add trendline! hope this helps!
 
reclusivemonkey said:
Sorry; I should of mentioned you need to have the chart selected to get that option.
Click to expand...

I ran into the same problem when trying to edit a chart on excel 2008, but even when I selected the graph, "chart options", "chart data", and "chart style" still don't show up on the formatting palette.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back