Today, almost everyone uses Microsoft Office on a daily basis. Although most people claim to be proficient in Office, that is far from the truth. Excel, in particular, is not remotely easy to use, especially if you are not tech-savvy.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a student, a business owner, or you like graphs and charts, you need to know how to use Excel. One of the most frequently asked questions regarding Excel is how to change the X axis, also called the horizontal axis.
Read on and find out how to do this, both in terms of axis range and axis intervals.
Excel Charting 101
Charting in Excel isn’t so complicated when you know what to expect. There is an X axis and a Y axis. The first is horizontal and the second is vertical. When you change the horizontal X-axis, you change the categories within it. You can also change its scale for a better view.
The horizontal axis displays the date or text, showing various intervals. This axis is not numerical like the vertical axis.
The vertical axis shows the value of the corresponding categories. You can use many categories, but keep in mind the size of the chart, so it fits on one Excel page. The best number of data sets for a viewable Excel chart is between four and six.
If you have more data to display, perhaps split it into multiple charts, which is not difficult to do. The X-axis changes we are about to show you should work in all versions of Excel, that is, the Microsoft Office packages.
How to change the range of the X axis
The X axis range is not difficult to change, but you have to think ahead and decide what types of changes you want to make. You can change many things, including the type of axis, category labels, its position, and the merging point of the X and Y axes.
Follow the steps to start changing the X axis range:
- Open the Excel file with the chart you want to adjust.
- Right click on the X axis on the chart you want to change. That will allow you to edit the X axis specifically.
- Then click Select data.
- Select Edit just below the Horizontal Axis Labels Tab.
- Then click Select range.
- Mark the cells in Excel where you want to replace the values on the current X-axis of your chart.
- When you select all the desired cells, tap Select range once again to confirm.
- Finally, click the OK and the values will be replaced with your selection.
- Click on OK one more time to get out of Select data source window.
How to edit the X axis
We also mentioned other changes and here’s how to make them. Follow the steps to make additional changes to the X axis:
- Open the Excel file that contains the chart you want to change.
- Click the chart with the X axis that you want to edit.
- Now choose Chart Tools.
- Then click Format from the list at the top of the screen.
- Then select Format selectionIt’s located just below File, near the top of the screen.
- Click on Axis Options >Values in Reverse Orderto change the way categories are numbered.
. - If you want to change the blending point of the X and Y axes, select Axle options and set the maximum value. Here you can change the interval of the ticks, thus changing the spacing on your chart.
How to change X axis intervals
Finally, you can also change the X-axis intervals. This can be useful to make the graph more readable or more specific. Simply follow these instructions:
On a text-based x-axis
Follow the instructions to change text-based X-axis ranges:
- Open the Excel file and select your chart.
- Now, right click on the horizontal axis and choose Format axis… from the menu.
- Select Axle options > Tags.
- Low Interval between tagsselect the radio icon next to Specify interval unit and click the text box next to it. Type the desired interval in the box. You can also leave it at one.
- Close the window and Excel will save your changes.
Horizontal axis changed
This is how to change the X axis in an Excel chart, in any version of Microsoft Excel. By the way, you can use the same steps to make most changes on the Y axis, or also on the vertical axis, depending on the type of change.
Excel is not an easy program, but hopefully you managed to follow these steps and make the necessary changes to your charts. If you want to add anything, please do so in the comments p below.
