Special Edition Using Microsoft® Office XP

Selecting Data to Plot

Excel maintains links between worksheet data and the data series on a chart. When you create a chart, Excel automatically detects the data to be charted based on the current selection. If you select a single cell, Excel bases the chart data on the current region—an area that extends in each direction until you encounter the edge of the worksheet or a blank row or blank column. On the other hand, if you select a range of cells, Excel uses that range for the chart data.

Note

The number of points per series is limited to 32,000, and the total number of points per chart is limited to 256,000. The maximum number of series you can use in a chart is 255. If you have more series than this, you must filter your list before creating ...