Too many data points in Excel Chart

Hi,

I am using Excel 2003 and I have several sets of data, each with hundreds of
data points.
When I create a bar graph (with data table), because of the quantity of
data, all the bars are so thin and cramped together that they are drawn as
black. The worse part is the data table is not readable anymore because
Excel try to put all the data into the table.

I think Excel 97 used to be alright, it will just pick a few points and put
that into data table so that it is readable.

Is there any way to tweak excel so that the graph (esp. data table) is more
readable?
PS, I try not to create separate columns to reduce the size of the data
sets, because it is not a one off job and I can't tell how many points there
will be, can be tens to thousands points.

Thank you very much,
Jo

Hi Jo,
My solution does need a helper column
Let A1:A1000 have x-values and B1:B1000 have y-values
In C1; =IF(MOD(Row(),100)=0,B1,NA()); copy down to C1000
Make chart from A and C - every 100th data point is plotted

But this does not help with table. So on a new sheet in A1 enter
=OFFSET(Sheet1!A$1,ROW()*100,0) copy to B1, copy A1:B1 down as far as
needed. Make chart for this data and copy chart to Sheet1

Best wishes
Bernard


"Jo" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I am using Excel 2003 and I have several sets of data, each with hundreds
of
data points.
When I create a bar graph (with data table), because of the quantity of
data, all the bars are so thin and cramped together that they are drawn as
black. The worse part is the data table is not readable anymore because
Excel try to put all the data into the table.

I think Excel 97 used to be alright, it will just pick a few points and
put
that into data table so that it is readable.

Is there any way to tweak excel so that the graph (esp. data table) is
more
readable?
PS, I try not to create separate columns to reduce the size of the data
sets, because it is not a one off job and I can't tell how many points
there
will be, can be tens to thousands points.

Thank you very much,
Jo