Excel – How to change x-axis min/max of Column chart in Excel

chartsmicrosoft excelmicrosoft-excel-2007

Here i have a column chart of binomial distribution, showing how many times you can expect to roll a six in 235 dice rolls:

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Note: You could also call it a binomial mass distribution for p=1/6, n=235

Now that graph is kinda squooshed. i'd like to change the Minimum and Maximum on the horizontal axis. i'd like to change them to:

  • Minimum: 22
  • Maximum: 57

Meaning i want to zoom in on this section of the graph:

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Bonus points to the reader who can say how the numbers 22 and 57 were arrived at

If this were a Scatter graph in Excel, i could adjust the horizintal axis minimum and maximum as i desired:

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Unfortunately, this is a Column chart, where there are no options to adjust the minimum and maximum limits of the ordinate axis:

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i can do a pretty horrible thing to the graph in Photoshop, but it's not very useful afterwards:

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Question: how to a change the x-axis minimum and maximum of a Column chart in Excel (2007)?

Best Answer

Right click on the chart and choose Select Data. Select your series and choose Edit. Instead of having a "Series Values" of A1:A235, make it A22:A57 or something similar. In short, just chart the data you want rather than charting everything and trying to hide parts of it.