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How to bring one chart line to the front?

Anonymous
2010-10-22T21:37:07+00:00

In a scatter plot with about 10 series (lines), one of the series is buried under all the other plots and is not visible.  How do I bring this plotted line to the front without making it last in the series?  That is, I do not want to change the order of the series in the legend.

Thanks!

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-10-23T10:06:19+00:00

    You would need to change the series order to bring the line to the top. But this will affect the legend.

    What you could do is use another data series to repeat the information and change that series plot order. You would need to format the data series to match the obscured series.

    Then you can delete the additional legend entry.

    Cheers,

    Andywww.andypope.info

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-11-07T15:23:04+00:00

    After finding the above answers to be unhelpful, I found another way (b.t.w. changing the series order does not affect the plotting order)....

    If you have a large scatter plot in which some of the data is covering other series lines, you can try this:

    • leave large scatter data series on primary vertical axis
    • move all other series to secondary vertical axis
    • set the secondary vertical axis limits to be exactly the same as the primary vertical axis
    • set the color of the font for the secondary vertical the same as the background...(thus it disappears).

    This forces Excel to plot the the items on the secondary axis last, and thus on top. I got this to work with my plots in Excel 2010.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-05-12T05:17:08+00:00

    In Excel 2016 (not sure about 2013 - I skipped that version) one can right-click on the graph to 'Select Data' source, and at the top right of the box to add/edit data series there's a button to move the order of data series.  This changes the overlay order of the lines produced.

    The legend order will follow, though...

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-06-16T07:51:03+00:00

    It looks like a bug in 2016 to me.  This suggestion to change the order in the select data window only changes the order in the legend.  I cannot use it to force one series to the front.  I find that the first series plotted stays in front.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-08-08T10:54:30+00:00

    Cool, it really worked for me!!!!

    Really helpful to introduce to the curves you want to be brought to front with the secondary axis.

    Very intelligent idea!!!!

    Thanks a lot.

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