Date X axis Affect Bar Width in a Bar Chart

I am trying to set up a bar chart, consisting of 4 series with datas along
the x axis and hours on the y axis. When I select the date data in the
Category X Axis box, the bars shrink in width such that you cannot see the
fill colors. The settings in the series option menu does not affect the
results.

What's up? How do you add dates to the x axis of a bar chart?

This often happens when you have dates on the category axis: the default
unit is days, but you have weekly data, so you have one skinny column
per week, and six blank places where there is no data.

You can override Excel's default treatment of date values by converting
the axis to a plain category axis. On the Chart menu, select Chart
Options, then on the Axes tab, change the category axis from Automatic
to Category.

- Jon
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Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______


Toby wrote:

> I am trying to set up a bar chart, consisting of 4 series with datas along
> the x axis and hours on the y axis. When I select the date data in the
> Category X Axis box, the bars shrink in width such that you cannot see the
> fill colors. The settings in the series option menu does not affect the
> results.
>
> What's up? How do you add dates to the x axis of a bar chart?