Page 556 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

538 Worksheet Charting 101
Format group of options in the task pane for adding shadows to the title text or other special effects.
✦ Textbox (with the A in the upper-left corner of a text box icon): When selected, it displays a list of Text Box options for controlling the vertical alignment, text direction (especially useful when formatting the Vertical [Value]Axis title), and angle of the text box containing the chart title.
Formatting chart axes with the Format Axis task pane
The axis is the scale used to plot the data for your chart. Most chart types will have axes. All 2-D and 3-D charts have an x-axis known as the horizontal axis and a y-axis known as the vertical axis with the exception of pie charts and radar charts. The horizontal x-axis is also referred to as the category axis and the vertical y-axis as the value axis except in the case of XY (Scatter) charts, where the horizontal x-axis is also a value axis just like the vertical y-axis because this type of chart plots two sets of values against each other.
When you create a chart, Excel sets up the category and values axes for
you automatically, based on the data you are plotting, which you can then adjust in various ways. The most common ways you will want to modify the category axis of a chart is to modify the interval between its tick marks and where it crosses the value axis in the chart. The most common ways you will want to modify a value axis of a chart is to change the scale that it uses and assign a new number formatting to its units.
To make such changes to a chart axis in the Format Axis task pane, right- click the axis in the chart and then select the Format Axis option at the very bottom of its shortcut menu. Excel opens the Format Axis task pane with the Axis Options group selected, displaying its four command buttons: Fill & Line, Effects, Size & Properties, and Axis Options. You then select the Axis Options button (with the clustered column data series icon) to display its four groups of options: Axis Options, Tick Marks, Labels, and Number.
Then, click Axis Options to expand and display its formatting options for the particular type of axis selected in the chart. Figure 1-12 shows the formatting options available when you expand this and the vertical (value) or y-axis is selected in the sample chart.
The Axis Options for formatting the Vertical (Value) Axis include:
✦ Bounds to determine minimum and maximum points of the axis scale. Use the Minimum option to reset the point where the axis begins — per- haps $4,000 instead of the default of $0 — by clicking its Fixed option button and then entering a value higher than 0.0 in its text box. Use the Maximum to determine the highest point displayed on the vertical axis by clicking its Fixed option button and then entering the new maximum value in its text box — note that data values in the chart greater than the value you specify here simply aren’t displayed in the chart.