can i have 2 scales in one line chart?

[Guest]

Dear All.

I want like to display a line chart (with markers) for the following data:

Sales/Period Year 04 Year 05 Year 06 Year 07
Country A £2,000 £2,100 £2,200 £2,300
Country B £800 £850 £900 £950
Country C £780 £830 £880 £930
Country D £750 £800 £850 £900

The problem is that countries B, C, and D have very similar amounts. So in
the chart the lines correspondent of these countries are very close. My idea
was to set up different scales in the Y axis, so i can see more space between
the lines. I know that one of the solutions is to use secondary axis. But by
doing that, its not "user friendly" to read the data...

What i really want to do is in the same axis (primary) have 2 different
scales.

Could you please help me with this?

Kind Regards
CB

 

[David Biddulph]

If you want a broken Y-axis, try
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/BrokenYAxis.html or
http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/newsgroups/broken_y_axis/tutorial/index.html

 

[Guest]

Hi David, Thx for your tip. BUT the examples bellow are only valid for bar
and xy charts....it will also work for the Line charts?

Thx
CB

 

[Jon Peltier]

Where is the validity of these methods specified? The methods are valid for
most 2D chart types.

- Jon

 

[Del Cotter]

Thx for your tip. BUT the examples bellow are only valid for bar
and xy charts....it will also work for the Line charts?

You are right that you need to use an "XY Chart" series in both methods,
but as you see from Jon's example, that doesn't prevent you from mixing
it with a "Bar Chart" series.

(Remember "Chart Type" is a property of each series independently, not a
property of the whole graph)

In the same way, there's nothing to stop you mixing the "XY Chart"
series with a "Line Chart" series. You can mix many different 2D types
together on the same graph, each series having a different type.

Having said that, I wonder if your needs might be better met by a panel
graph, as in these examples:

http://processtrends.com/toc_panel_charts.htm
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/StackedCharts.html

These examples also use a mixture of XY and other chart types. If for
some reason you don't like mixing series types, then since a line graph
is what you're seeking, why don't you just make every series an XY
series, and format the series to have lines as well as markers?