Let’s say you want a single chart to show

data series with differing orders of mag-

nitude. Perhaps you want to illustrate

revenue in millions of dollars and gross

profit percent on the same chart. Excel

2003 offered a method for creating this

chart type, even if it was hidden where

few would find it. Excel 2007 and Excel

2010 still allow this type

of chart, but it is tougher

to create.

Easy in Excel2003Back in Excel 2003,

choose Insert Chart. In the

first step of the chart wiz-

ard, click on the Custom

Types tab. Scroll down to

the Line – Column on 2

Axes chart type, as shown

in Figure 1. Excel will take

care of formatting the

chart with two axes and

will place the last series as

a line chart on the sec-

ondary axis.

While using the Chart

Wizard made this type of

chart easier in Excel 2003,

the process wasn’t flexible. What if you

wanted to have one series shown as a

column chart and two series shown as a

line chart tied to the secondary axis?

That type wasn’t supported in the Chart

Wizard. If you need to do anything more

complicated than the basic column or

line chart in Excel 2003, the following

steps will allow you to create many dif-

ferent types of combination charts.

Creating a CustomCombination Chart inExcel 97 through 2010Begin by plotting all of your series as a 2-

D clustered column chart. Don’t use 3-D

chart types, as you can’t

create a combination

chart where one of the

series is a 3-D chart type.

In Figure 2, there are

three series to be plotted

on the chart. The size of

the revenue series causes

the Gross Profit Percentage

(GP%) and Customer Sat-

isfaction Percentage (Cust

sat%) series to be too

small to see, so you would

like to move those two

series to a secondary axis.

The Charting Toolbar

in Excel 2003 or the

Layout tab in Excel

2007/2010 start with a

dropdown list of chart

elements. Open that

dropdown and choose

54 S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E I Nove m b e r 2 0 1 0

TECHNOLOGY

EXCELExcel Charting Using a Second Axis

By Bill Jelen

Figure 1

one of the series to be moved to the

secondary axis, as shown in Figure 2.

After a series is selected, open the

Format Data Series dialog box (type

CTRL+1 or click the Format Selection

icon). In Excel 2007/2010, you can

choose Secondary Axis from the first

screen of the Format Series dialog. In

Excel 2003, first choose the Axis tab in

the toolbar, then choose Secondary Axis.

At this point, Excel does something

perplexing. When you move a series to

the secondary axis, it plots the columns

for that series in front

of the columns for the

series on the primary

axis. This means that

you may not be able to

see short columns in

the back of the chart.

The traditional solution is to change the

chart type for the secondary axis to be

line charts. Since you can essentially see

behind the line chart, you’ll be able to

make out all of the data points.

While the individual series is selected,

go to the Design tab in Excel 2007/2010

and choose Change Chart Type. Select

one of the 2-D line styles for the second

series. In Excel 2003, use Chart, Chart

Type…and choose a line type.

You can now repeat these steps for

the third series. Select Cust sat% from

the dropdown list of chart elements. For-

mat that series and choose Secondary

Axis. Change the chart type of that

series to a line chart.

In the resulting chart (see Figure 3),

the blue columns correspond to the rev-

enue amounts shown on the left vertical

axis. The GP% and Cust sat% are line

charts tied to the right vertical axis.

Although the process requires more

steps in Excel 2007/2010, it’s more flexi-

ble, allowing you to choose which data

series should apply to the secondary

axis. SF

Bill Jelen is the host of MrExcel.com and

the author of 32 books about Excel,

including Charts & Graphs: Excel 2010.

Send questions for future articles to

IMA@MrExcel.com.

Nove m b e r 2 0 1 0 I S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E 55

Figure 2 Figure 3