Saturday, September 2, 2017

Different Colors for Labels on Axis in Graph/Chart for Excel

I needed to come up with a way to have the labels different colors to add additional categorization my charts. I had seen a co-worker do this before, but he make several copies of the same graph with different colors and then just used paint to edit them. Turns out there is a much simpler answer here:
Link

Short Ver.
  • Create a separate column for each colored label, and have the output be Zero or #N/A
  • Change the plot of these to "Line Chart"
  • Click on the label and select "Category Name" uncheck the rest
  • Under the labels set the alignment label position to "below" 
  • Click on the actual lines and hide them 
  • Change the color of the labels 
Okay, lets say you copied the chart and the labels disappeared. 
  •  Add the legend back if you removed it
  • Click on the legend marker for labels "it should still be there even if there is nothing" change the color so it appear son the graph
  • Right click on the line, and click "Add Data Labels" 
  • Now you can edit it just like above, just make sure to make the line no color again afterwards