X Axis and Numbers

Common X Axis Problem

If your first column contains numbers, such as years, Excel will not recognize that you want this series to be on the X axis. Excel will just treat it as another series. In the example below, zip code has been treated as a series rather than displaying on the x axis as the user wanted.

• On the Design tab, click on Select Data
• Select Zipcode in the dialog box
• Click Remove
• Click on the Edit button in the Horizontal (Category) Axis labels dialog box
  and select the zipcode data (A8:A11) as the Axis label range
• Make sure not to include the heading zipcode
• Click OK
• Click OK

Now, you have a nice chart with Zipcode labels on the X axis!