Microsoft KB Archive/88430

{| = Excel: Rules for Plotting Selections May Differ =
 * width="100%"|

Last reviewed: November 30, 1994

Article ID: Q88430 The information in this article applies to:
 * Microsoft Excel for Windows, version 3.0
 * Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, version 3.0
 * Microsoft Excel for OS/2, version 3.0

SUMMARY
The &quot;Microsoft Excel 3.0 User's Guide&quot; states on page 402:

&quot;The rules used for plotting selections by shape are the same whether or not the upper-left cell of the worksheet selection is blank.&quot;

This is generally true except when the first row or column in the selection contains dates as category or series labels.

MORE INFORMATION
The following example illustrates this inconsistency:

Example
Enter the following into a worksheet:

A1:            B1: Jan-99      C1: Feb-99 A2: One        B2: 1           C2: 4 A3: Two        B3: 2           C3: 5 A4: Three      B4: 3           C4: 6 A5: Four       B5: 4           C5: 8 Given that there are more rows than columns, the first column will be the category labels and the first row will be the series names resulting in four categories and two series per category. If you were to type &quot;Table1&quot; (without the quotation marks) into cell A1 and recreate the chart, the first column will now be the series names and the first row the category labels resulting in two categories and four series per category. Given the number of rows and columns, this is incorrect.

If, however, the dates in cells B1:C1 are changed to text constants, this inconsistency will not occur and the chart will appear the same as it does with cell A1 left blank.