Naming Basics Best practice recommendations are to create a chart placing independent variables on the horizontal, x-axis and dependent variables on the vertical, y-axis.

How Excel Charts Work A chart has an x-axis range and a y-axis range to show the correlation between two different data sets. The x-axis is the horizontal category line.

If you have uneven distribution of data in your Excel chart, here is a better way to change the automatic axis settings.

We discuss a comment on a previous post stating that the text of labels on the vertical axis of graphs must be horizontal by discussing the pros and cons of four possible positions for these labels.