Dates by Month on X-Axis in Horizontal Stacked Bar Chart

Hi all,

I understand some of the nuances with working with the horizontal bar chart in a Ganntt style format but can't seem to figure out a way to force the X-Axis to behave the way I'd like it to.

In Excel 2007, I am trying to get the X-Axis to show major units of Months. However, in my chart options I can only change the Y-Axis to be Dates. Changing the Scale to something like a 31 day unit gets me close, but still goes wonky after a couple of months as it drifts.

Changing my data layout (from the below) to be a vertical format produces the same problem, just in the other direction.

My data looks as follows:


System Blocker Production Migrataion Retired
Sys1 1/1/2012 780
Sys2 1/1/2012 400 60 90
Sys3 2/1/2013 30 5 1

The Blocker column is formatted as "No Fill" in order to cover a portion of the time-scale, so that tasks don't always start at the beginning of the time scale.

My X-Axis displays as random dates throughout the period and all of my data displays properly in terms of the scale on the grid.

What is NOT working is that the dates shown on the X-Axis really need to be based on a Monthly scale instead of the randomly selected dates Excel is using.

I can't seem to find the right combination of options to make that happen or force a scale on the X-Axis.

I've been through a lot of the X-Axis discussions on this and other sites, but can't find an example of exactly what I am doing here.

I have also tried creating a secondary Axis and the dates don't align properly, even with the same scale applied. And also have tried the copy/paste-special method of adding the explicit dates but that forces the whole chart into a fairly unusable format.

Am open to all suggestions and if you can provide specific details, even better.