Introducing the secondary axis makes the placement of the lines wrong on the primary axis when you are fixing the start point (in my case first of a month).

I can only get around by matching the range of the secondary horizontal axis with the primary horizontal. Have not been able to find a different way.

cheers,
Sami

Scroll down to the heading “But there’s an easier way.” This technique only needs one X axis, and only requires a slight realignment of your data.

I am strugling with excel 2007 to plot lines with date axis. It looks like excel 2007 is acting unlogical.
I’ll decribe the problem using a simple example. Let’s make two lines: series1 (column B) and series2 (column C). Have a common date axis on column A. Have the dates running from for example 8-nov-2009 till 22-dec-2009. First plot series1 as a line (with markers). Date axis will be from 8-nov-2009 till 22-dec-2009. After that add series2.
So far so good. Since I like to start the date axis at the first of month I am fixing start x-axis at 1-nov-2009. This is also still fine. The first point of line is positioned above x-axis location 8-nov. But now comes the annoyance.
If I want for series2 to correspond to a secondary axis excel messes up the x-axis placing the lines with respect to the x-axis.
Just realized that somehow excel 2007 makes the secondary x-axis prevailing and I must manually configure secondary x-axis to have the lines displayed correctly. This means that I when secondy axis switched on I am switching on as well secondary x-axis even if I am not displaying.??
Is there a way to link secondary x-axis to primary x-axis (automatically matching ranges)? Is there a more efficient (other) way to plot the chart that I just described?

many thanks for your help,
Sami

ps: By the way I tried as well with combination plot (changing series2 to xy-plot) but di’n't manage.

You didn’t mention a version of Excel, but Excel 2003 automagically applies the primary category labels to the secondary axis. (If it doesn’t for some reason, go to Chart menu > Source Data > Series tab, copy the address from Category (X) Axis Labels to Secondary Category (X) Axis Labels).

In my little test Excel 2007 also applied the primary labels to the secondary axis. But the protocol to fix your issue is to right click on the chart and choose Select Data. Select a primary axis series, and click on the Edit button under Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels, copy the axis label range address, then select a secondary axis series, click again on the Edit button under Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels, click in the box, and paste the address.

I have a decent looking plot, but the seondary axies series sets show a point no. instead of a date when I select a point on the graph. The primary axis series shows both the value and the date. Any suggestions to make the dates also show on the two secondary axis series points?

Clean up the data: use only one row for the column headers. Include units in the same cell, or better, leave them off.

Select the “Coulomb” column, then hold CTRL while you select the “pH” and “Phosphate” columns. Create an XY chart. Excel should use the first column as X values and the other two as Y values. Right click the Phosphate series, choose Format, and on the main tab (2007) or on the Axis tab, choose Secondary.

Kindly assist me in plotting a XY Graph with Coulombs on X-axis,on the Y-axis I need Phosphate as primary (on the left hand side) and pH secondary (on the right hand side).I use Office 2007 and sometimes Ofiice 2003 and I did manage to plot the graph of Phosphates Vs Coulombs but I am struggling to add pH on the right hand side of the same graph.Please find the sample of the data that I am trying to plot the graphs for.

Thanks in advance,
Christopher

Time(s) Current(A)Coulomb Voltage(V) pH(mV) Phosphate
(A.s/L) (mg/L P)
0 1.12 0 0.5 3.2 0.8
1200 1.12 1344 0.6 2.95 0.72
2400 1.12 2757 0.7 2.88 0.68
3600 1.12 4244 0.8 2.78 0.65
4800 1.12 5812 0.9 2.72 0.56

Have you ensured that you have a Date (Time-Scale) Axis? In the base unit defined as Days?

Are your dates numerical or text? It only takes one text value to mess up the whole list.