Charting a range

[cavedemon]

I know this is really basic, but I cannot figure out for the life of me how to chart a range of data in a bar chart. Example: Salary 36200-39900. I am relearning Excel, and have not used it since 1995, soooo.... be patient with me. Have gone over the threads and looked at videos until my head feels like it is going to explode. This has to be simple, what am I overlooking?

 

[Greg Truby]

Welcome to the board. Try just highlighting the data you want (or a simplified set of test data) and hit the F11 key (for a chart on a new sheet) or Alt+F1 (for a chart on the same sheet). Did that get you close?

 

[cavedemon]

Not really. It gives me two bars, one over the other. What I want to creat is one bar starting at the low salary, and ending with the high salary amount.

 

[cavedemon]

And actually, when I did use Excel in the past, it was not a big deal. It was basic to the majority of my work as a Quality Assurance Analyst. (We actually used quantitative and qualitative behavioral charts to test software designs. I think we were the only company in the U.S. doing that, and it worked magnificently.) So I am not learning from scratch, but am refreshing and updating knowledge I haven't used in years. Then closest thing I can find to what I would like on the videos is a waterfall chart. However, I do not want any calculations from one row to the next. Just a simple range starting at "x" where x is greater than zero, and ending at "x+whatever".

 

[cavedemon]

Making "some" progress. I create the bar chart with the two bars. I highlight the lower range, and set the data label to "inside end". I do the same for the higher range, and set the data label to "outside end". Then I select the data series, and set overlap to 100%. That would work, except the lower range laps UNDER the higher range and I can't get it lap OVER the higher range bar. Any ideas from here?

 

[Roseus]

I might be oversimplifying this, but I think I produced the result you're looking for.

In cell:

A1 - "Salary"
A2 - "$39,900"

I highlighted A1:A2, selected Insert then Bar Chart.

When the bar chart pops up, I double clicked on the x-axis (horizontal) and changed the Minimum from Automatic to Fixed: 36,200, and the Maximum from Automatic to Fixed: 39,900.

Thus, I have a bar chart, with a single bar, and the range is the range you specified.

 

[cavedemon]

When I do what you recommend, and double click on the horizontal axis, nothing comes up. What am I doing wrong? I cannot get anything to come up with an option for a min or max.

 

[Steve=True]

you may want to post your file on www.4shared.com so that we can help you with what you want.

I don't understand how a waterfall chart is close to what you are looking for.

 

[Roseus]

Click anywhere on your chart once. In the Ribbon (edit: which is the newer than '95 complicated menu bar thing up top), you'll see new options show up: Design, Layout, and Format.

Select Layout.

Click the icon for Axes (next to Gridlines), Primary Horizontal Axis, and then at the bottom, select More Primary Horizontal Axis Options.

This will force the popup box I'm talking about to appear, if you can't get it through double-clicking.

Edit: You'll probably need to change up the Major and Minor units, as well, since Excel can't think of a pretty iteration (it likes whole numbers) between 36,200 and 39,900.

 

[cavedemon]

O.K. I got it to work by right clicking on the horizontal axis, going to format axis, and changing the min and max for the axis. That would work if I only had one salary range, but I have dozens I need to show on the same chart one above the other. So, I need to do something similar for each individual data set.

Simple pic of what I need at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...59322948.80422.100000517286505&type=1&theater