Comments on: Prepare Your Data

By: Excel Links of The Week - Malmo Edition | excel links | Pointy Haired Dilbert - Chandoo.org

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:11:25 +0000

[...] Prepare Your Data for Charting [...]

By: Colin Banfield

Colin Banfield — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:48:56 +0000

Everything else? :-)

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:32:39 +0000

Thanks Colin. I must be thinking of something else. Now what is it about Excel 2007 charts that are different from Excel 2003 charts…?

By: Colin Banfield

Colin Banfield — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:57:43 +0000

Jon, in Excel 2007, the behavior is identical.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:21:11 +0000

Colin -

Thanks, I should add this to the article. Note hat in 2003 and earlier, if the number of columns is greater than or equal to the number of rows, then the series are plotted by row. I have a fuzzy memory of 2007 working differently, but I’m too lazy right now to check.

By: Colin Banfield

Colin Banfield — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:41:36 +0000

Jon, solid article. A couple of things regarding Excel defaults that might have been worth mentioning:

By default, if the data range contains more rows than columns, Excel uses the row data to create the category axis labels (the actual labels used are based on having a column header or not, as you mention). However, if there are more columns than rows or a tie, Excel instead uses the column data to create the category axis labels (the actual labels subject to similar criteria as noted before).

Then there are the default labels and series names applied when no explicit row or column labels exist – not often a good thing…