Task 7 Editing Axes


Objective To alter the scales on which graphs are plotted.

Instructions You will click on the axes you wish to alter, then use the Selected Axis command from the Format menu.

Comments It is often desirable to change the scale of which axes are plotted. You can change it from a linear to a logarithmic scale, or you can change the starting and finishing values on the Y-axis to alter the appearance of a gradient.

Activity 7.1 Click on the Y-axis. Two little boxes should appear, one at either end of the axis. Now select the Selected Axis...command from the Format menu. A dialogue box should appear. Click on the tab labelled Scale. The box will appear as shown below:

This box allows you to alter the starting value, finishing value and increment units for the axis. You can also specify where you want the X axis to cross.

Activity 7.2 Edit the box as follows: 
Minimum:	30

Maximum:	80

Major Unit:	5

Minor Unit:	1
You will note that as you go through the boxes, editing the contents, that the check box on the left hand side becomes cleared. This is because you are removing the default values that Excel provides. When you are finished click <OK>. The chart has altered such that the differences between the individual sales reps is now more pronounced.

Activity 7.3 Now double click on the X-axis. The tabbed dialogue box should appear again, but this time select the Alignment tab. This controls the orientation of the text on screen. Select the option shown highlighted here, and click <OK>. All the text labels for the X-axis will be rotated 90 degrees.



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Last Updated Monday, 25-Aug-1997 13:03:44 PDT