Why does X axis become another data series?

[Philip Reece-Heal]

Take the following data to use with Chart Wizard to get a chart:

Distance height
0 5
5 4
8 3
9 6
12 7
13 8


If I highlight all data including column titles, the chart wizard produces
both columns as Series, whereas I want Distance column to be X axis values.
Why is this?

If I delete the column heading 'Distance' and leave that cell blank it works
OK, as it does if 1st column contains dates.

It is annoying when I want to quickly highlight data in a spreadsheet to
produce a chart .

Anybody got any simple solution?

Regards

Phiulip

 

[David Biddulph]

Simple solution, as you've found, is to leave the X axis column heading
blank until after you've produced your chart, and then fill it in.

 

[Jon Peltier]

If you make an XY chart, which suits this data better than other chart
types, Excel will automatically use the first column for the X values.

If you make another chart type, the first column must be obviously
different: date format, text format, missing the label in the first row.

Easier than omitting the X values from the selected range and filling it
in later is to make an XY chart, then change it to the chart type you
want. As I said, though, your sample data will be best displayed in an
XY chart, because both X and Y have non-consecutive numerical values.

- Jon