MS Graph turns my labels (years: 1990, 1991) into the first data s

[DevilD]

Take this sample table sitting in an Excel spreadsheet:
Group A Group B
1990 12 34
1991 56 78
1992 91 23
1993 45 67
1994 89 12

When I try to paste these as a link into MS Graph 11 to create a graph in
PowerPoint 2003, Graph take the first column (unlabeled) and converts it into
a data series. I've tried the obvious: changing cell number formats in both
Excel and in Graph, introducing an apostrophe (and even an apostrophe and a
space) before the years to see if Graph will see them as text, and a few
other madcap schemes.

I would dearly love to get this to work... otherwise I'm just going to have
to eat crow and change some project specs.

 

[DevilD]

I should list the one "solution" I did find:
Change 1990 to 1/1/1990, 1991 to 1/1/1991, etc. I don't like this method,
for practical and esthetic reasons.

 

[Echo S]

What did you change the number formats to? Text should work.

 

[Lucy Thomson]

Hi

If I was you I would create the graph in Excel then copy/paste into
PowerPoint thus knocking MSGraph out of the equation all together. But then
I hate MSGraph And PowerPoint 2007 uses Excel as its graphing engine so
you might as well get used to it....

Lucy

 

[Pia Bork]

Change 1990 to 1/1/1990, 1991 to 1/1/1991, etc. I don't like this method,
for practical and esthetic reasons.

You can type 1/1/1990 and tell Excel to show only the year. Go to
"Format/Cells/Custom" and create the type "yyyy".
Another solution is to type a single quote ' in front of the numer 1990. The
quote is only shown in the formula bar.

 

[Ute Simon]

When I try to paste these as a link into MS Graph 11 to create a graph in

PowerPoint 2003, Graph take the first column (unlabeled) and converts it
into
a data series. I've tried the obvious: changing cell number formats in
both
Excel and in Graph, introducing an apostrophe (and even an apostrophe and
a
space) before the years to see if Graph will see them as text, and a few
other madcap schemes.

When you pasted this into the table of MSGraph in PowerPoint, did you make
sure, that the years are in the very left column? (Not in the one labeled
"A".)

Another option you might want to try: Transpose the Table in Excel, so that
the years are the column headers and "Group A", "Group B" are the line
headers (in the column left of "A") and see whether MS Graph gives you
better results then.

Best regards,
Ute