Why can you not (seemingly) format x-axis colours in line charts

**Yeldaw** · 11-20-2012, 02:25 PM

Hello there,

This is my first post so please go easy on me.

I have been looking at some line charts I have been building, and part of the requirement was to apply different colour formats to the x-axis, so negative values in red, positive black, now I thought this would be pretty straightforward, but I found when writing the formatting, you could apply a custom format, but it wouldn't pick up in the chart....strangely, you can do the same thing with the y-axis without any trouble. I have found that this isn't true when using scatter charts, but is for bar and line.

I have found a work around for it, by applying two separate series, using the categories, and implementing it as a pseudo x-axis...but its a bit of an ugly solution and I would be interested to know if there is a way to use the colour formatting on the x-axis, and if not, why not?

Thank you.

**lmp** · 11-21-2012, 05:01 AM

Hello,

the X axis is the line that borders the bottom part of the plot area. It has one color. That color can be set in the x axis properties. I'm not really sure you want to color the X axis, but I think you want to color the actual line in a line or XY chart. Can you clarify?

In a column chart, Excel offers the option to "invert if negative" so a negative value in a column chart is assigned a different color than the positive data points. That makes sense, since in a column chart, the bars represent the actual values of the data points.

But with a line chart, this option is not offered. Why not? Well, a line or XY chart combines data points and plots a line between two values. If the first value is 1 and the second value is -1, what color should the line have? The line does not plot the actual data points, but just connects them.

I think you may want to post a file showing what you expect to see. It would certainly clear up the confusion of "x-axis color".

**Yeldaw** · 11-21-2012, 06:58 AM

Thanks for the response. I should have been clearer. I was trying to format the x-axis labels, red where the label values are negative, black where they are positive, on a line chart I could not do this, not by linking to the data or custom formatting through the 'format axis' option.

I have solved the issue by using a scatter graph and setting the lines.

What I was really interested to understand is why the x-axis labels where not responding to formatting, when the y-axis labels would in a line chart, and why then this doesn't apply to scatter charts. Excel glitch?

**Andy Pope** · 11-21-2012, 08:40 AM

I just created this xy-scatter chart and both axes and data labels reflected the negative red and positive black formatting.

Not sure what you are doing, maybe an example would clarify.

**JosephP** · 11-21-2012, 09:04 AM

in an xy chart both axes are value axes; in line and bar charts the x axis is category (or timescale) so the labels are text and not numbers and your formats do not apply

**Yeldaw** · 11-21-2012, 10:16 AM

Thank you, makes sense, although it would be helpful if the link to the source allowed you to apply that formatting, but it doesn't seem to

**JosephP** · 11-21-2012, 10:22 AM

I agree :-)

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