Forum Discussion
How to Make a Combination Chart with Line on Secondary Axis
I used to be able to graph anything on Excel, but it seems like they have taken away all my control and put together wizards that don't work, if I don't have things formatted just the way Excel wants. I need some help understanding how to make this Wizard happy. When I try to choose Change Chart Type to Combo with Line on Secondary Axis, it is greyed out and will not let me choose it.
Ok great! So it looks like the problem was you had duplicate dates, and excel freaks out when there are multiple x axis and y axis coordinates. I slimmed your data down to just one date and one projected/actual count, and charted those.
You can change the numbers and dates as needed but this should give you a good template to work off of.
Let me know if this helps.
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Is your data formatted correctly? You'll need at least 3 rows, your x-axis, and values for each line like so:
From there, all you have to do is click insert chart > Combo > and click the Secondary axis button on whichever data set you want on that axis and change both chart types to line.
- Yeah, obviously not as I have 3 columns of data but Combo chart is grayed out and will not let me select. That's what's frustrating about the online help, it starts like you know what you are doing and then says, "then push the button, voila".
Can you tell me step by step like I haven't been making charts for 28 years? Cuz this is hard to swallow that I suddenly can't make a chart. Thanks.Having 3 columns might be the problem, try switching the axis's by selecting you data > pressing insert chart (type doesn't matter now). I just did a line graph.
Then right click the graph > select data
And in the box that pops up, press switch row/column.
Let me know if that fixes it. Excel is really good about creating graphs for you, there isn't much manual work required outside of getting the data formatted in a way that it reads it correctly.
