Setting first column as x-axis in chart

Geoff,

I'm guessing that your first column is not a header column. You can add one to your table by clicking the left of three little grids near the right side of the the format bar or Inspector > Tables > Headers & Footer. Copy your labels from column B to header column A, then delete column B with the old labels. I think you will have to create a new chart. But that's easy enough and you should have labels on your x-axis.

pw

Geoff,

To force the first column to be your X-Axis labels, format the first column data as Text.

If your first column content consists of text strings, you'll have no trouble, but if it consists of numbers, you can select the data and just use the Toolbar or the Inspector to set the format to Text.

Regards,

Jerry

Goeff,

I wouldn't draw the same conclusion about Numbers as you do. If you select your first column and format it as Text, either using the Cells Inspector or the Format Bar, then select the entire three columns and Add a Chart, the chart will use the first column as the Category axis labels and the last two columns as Value Axes data. And, you will have a Category Chart, not well suited to plotting functions.

Numbers Charts are not up to heavy duty scientific work, but they do work pretty much as advertised. By the way, for your case, you should be using a Scatter Plot, in which case Numbers will accept (demand actually) that the first column be formatted as numeric. No, you can't get lines between the points of a Scatter Plot, but that's another issue.

Thanks for your questions.

Regards,

Jerry