Horizontal (Category) Axis

[nemowei]

Hello Excel Wizards,


I have a chart problems that is really baffling. This is the scenario:


Column A1 = 5/1/2008

Column A2 = 5/1/2009

Column A3 = 5/1/2010


Column B1 = 5

Column B2 = 6

Column B3 = 7


And then I go to Insert Tab | Column to create a chart. My category axis displays 1/1/2008, 1/1/2009, 1/1/2010. Should'nt they display 5/1/2008....5/1/2010? Now I know I can change the Axis type to Text axis to get the desired output, eventhough my data are dates and not text. My question now is, Is this really the default of Office 2010? Because I tried it in Word, PowerPoint and Excel and same things happened.


I hope you guys can shed light to my question.


Chandoo has always been a great help!.


Thanks and hope to hear from you soon.

 

[koi]

Hi,


right click on the horizontal axis, then choose format axis,


then search for Base.. change Years to Date then it will reflect the date

 

[Luke M]

After some testing, I've found that the same thing occurs in Office 2007, so it's not new.

Like you also noticed, if you change to Text labels, things work okay. If you choose months as the base unit, the columns get correct labels (as well as a bunch of extras).


Now, here's where things get even weirder. Using this data set:

[pre]

5/1/2008	5
6/1/2008	3
5/1/2009	6
5/1/2010	7

[/pre]
XL will still show 3 columns, spaced by 1 year (1/1/08, 1/1/09, 1/1/10) but the first column has a value of 5. If I change the value associated with 6/1/08 to 10, the chart changes to match that value, only 10! So, it's as if XL is only looking for the max value within the year!?!


My best recommendation is to just use the text labels, or use months as the base unit. I agree, a very weird event however. Maybe someone else can shed more light.