Chart disappears when axis labels are rotated by -30 degree with categories are reversed

Dear @Thilak babu Prabhakar, 

I hope you're having a nice day. Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A forum and for sharing a detailed explanation of the issue.   

I understand how inconvenient it must be when your clustered bar chart disappears after rotating axis labels to -30 degrees while reversing the category order. 

1/ This issue is most likely caused by rendering limitations within Excel’s chart engine. When both a custom label rotation and reversed category order are applied, Excel may struggle to allocate enough space to properly display the chart, particularly when only one data point is present. As a result, the chart may appear to vanish, even though the data itself remains intact. 

2/ Unfortunately, this isn’t officially documented as expected behavior, similar issues have been acknowledged in Microsoft’s support resources. For instance, Excel may skip or hide axis labels when space is limited, and there are known cases where charts fail to render correctly under certain formatting combinations. So although it’s not labeled a bug, it does resemble a rendering limitation that hasn’t been fully resolved. 

Additional information is available in the following resource: 

Change the plotting order of categories, values, or data series - Microsoft Support 

Change how rows and columns of data are plotted in a chart - Microsoft Support 

3/ You’re most likely to encounter this issue with chart types that rely heavily on axis formatting, such as clustered bar charts, column charts, and line charts and area charts. These charts are more sensitive to label rotation and category order changes, especially when the dataset is minimal. Charts like pie, doughnut or Radar with Markers charts are generally unaffected since they don’t use axes in the same way.  

4/ Your observation about the chart rendering correctly when two data points are present is insightful. It suggests that this issue may be specific to scenarios where only one data point is plotted with reversed categories and rotated labels. 

Therefore, I recommend keeping the label rotation at 0° or using the Auto setting when reversing categories. If you need to use a custom rotation, consider adding a second dummy data point to help stabilize the chart rendering. 

I know this isn't the answer you were hoping for, and I want you to know that I wish I had a way to change it for you directly.  

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Thank you again for your patience and for bringing this to our attention. While I can't change the product's design, please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any other questions about its current functionality. 

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