Comparing data in chart (2003)

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I need to chart values from several months, comparing Jan 2006 to Jan 2007 etc. This works fine for one month. However, as soon as I add values for Feb, Mar and Apr I get a chart that totally rearranges the category points. It starts with Jan 2006, goes on to Apr 2006, then has data points for Apr 2006 through Dec 2006 – but no values and then adds Jan 2007 through Apr 2007. The data is in order but the chart is not. I have looked at everything and cannot find the answer.
See attachment with sample data.
Please help!
Thanks

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I don’t know what you want the result to be, but perhaps the following will help?
– Click anywhere on the chart.
– Select Chart | Chart Options…
– Activate the Axes tab.
– Select “Category” for the category axis (the “Automatic” setting defaults to a time scale if possible).
– Click OK.

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Thank you Hans. That seems to work. However, I messed with this back and forth and one answer was to format the dates to text. That way Excel seems to behave. After the chart came out OK I used your technique and also set the format back to a date and the chart stayed the same – namely in the order I wanted it. This is weird!
Thanks for your help.

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If the values for the x-axis are text or numbers, Excel will treat the values as categories, but if they are dates, Excel will treat them as such and create a time-scale axis by default.

By formatting the dates as text, you force Excel to treat the values as categories (your workaround).
Alternatively, you can bypass the default by explicitly specifying that the x-axis should be categorical, even if the values are dates (my suggestion).

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Thanks, I learned something else in Excel I did not know. Thank you for making my day, Hans.

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