Problem displaying dates on X axis properly...

Question

I'm trying to create a new chart in an existing worksheet.  Two issues  have me stumped.

I'm trying to display end-of-month results for 1 year in monthly increments but starting with the value one year prior to the first date in the chart.  I'd like the X axis to contain 8/31/09, then 8/31/10 and each month through to 8/31/11.   That's how I have the data arranged in the column the chart refers to.

When I selected the data range in question what I get is 8/31/09 and every month through 8/31/11, even though the dates between 8/31/09 and 7/31/10 are not present in the data column on the related worksheet.

As a temporary (I hope) work around I changed the selected data range to omit the prior year's date.  That fixed the problem of having all those blank months present but now the X axis labels all show the first date of the month rather than the last date.  8/31 shows 8/01, etc.

I've got other charts referring to other worksheets in this workbook and they don't have the problem.  I'll appreciate any help figuring out what I'm doing wrong.

Answer 1

Right click in the chart: choose "chart options", axis tab, select "category".

Regards.

Daniel

Answer 2

Bingo!  Thank you.

That fixed my problem. I'm still a little puzzled why on a previous chart I have in the same workbook, for a prior year, checking Automatic rather than Category worked.  But I'm happy.

Thanks again Daniel.

oldguy23