How to Change Horizontal Axis Values – Excel & Google Sheets

Written by

Editorial Team

Reviewed by

Steve Rynearson

Last updated on October 30, 2023

This tutorial will demonstrate how to change Horizontal Axis Values in Excel and Google Sheets

How to Change Horizontal Axis Values in Excel

Starting with your Graph

In this tutorial, we’ll start with a Scatterplot that is showing how many clicks a website gets per week.

As you can see, our date is on the X Axis and Clicks are on the Y Axis.

Changing Horizontal Axis in Excel for Graphs

Changing your X Axis (Horizontal) Values

Let’s say to show a cleaner visual, we want to show the Week # instead of the date to show how it increases over the weeks.

We created another column to show what we want to replace the current X Axis with.

Changing X Axis Values for Scatterplot Excel

  1. Right click on the graph
  2. Click Select Data

Select New Data to Change Horizontal Axis in Excel

3. Click on your Series

4. Select Edit

Switch X Axis Value Series in Excel

5. Delete the Formula in the box under the Series X Values.

6. Click on the Arrow next to the Series X Values Box. This will allow you to select the new X Values Series on the Excel Sheet

Replace X Value Series in Excel

7. Highlight the new Series that you would like for the X Values. Select Enter.

New X Value Series in Excel

Final Graph with Updated X Value Series in Excel

Now you’ll see the new value shows the week number instead of the date.

Final Updated Graph for X Values Horizontal in Excel

How to Change Horizontal Axis Values in Google Sheets

Starting with your Graph

Similar to what we did in Excel, we can do the same in Google Sheets. We’ll start with the date on the X Axis and show how to change those values.

Change Horizontal Values in Google Sheets

  1. Right click on the graph
  2. Select Data Range

Change Data Range in Google Sheets X Axis

3. Click on the box under X-Axis

4. Click on the Box to Select a data range

Select New Data for Horizontal Axis in Google Sheets

5. Highlight the new range that you would like for the X Axis Series. Click OK

New X Value Series in Google Sheets

Final Graph with Updated X Value Series in Google Sheets

Final Graph with Updated X Values Horizontal in Google Sheets

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