Chapter 21: Using Advanced Charting Techniques
21
Excel chooses the way to orient the category labels, but you can override its choice.
Figure 21.18 shows a column chart with month labels. Because of the lengthy category
labels, Excel displays the text at an angle. If you make the chart wider, the labels will then
appear horizontally. You can also adjust the labels using the Alignment controls in the Size
& Properties section of the Format Axis task pane.
FIGURE 21.16
Excel recognizes dates and creates a time-based category axis.
FIGURE 21.17
Overriding the Excel time-based category axis
Keep in mind that category axis labels can consist of more than one column. Figure 21.19
shows a chart that displays three columns of text for the category axis. We selected the
range A1:E10 and created a column chart, and Excel figured out the category axis.