How to wrap X axis labels in a chart in Excel?
When the chart area is not wide enough to show it's X axis labels in Excel, all the axis labels will be rotated and slanted in Excel. Some users may think of wrapping the axis labels and letting them show in more than one line. Actually, there are a couple of tricks to warp X axis labels in a chart in Excel.
Wrap X axis labels with adding hard return in label cells
Wrap X axis labels with entering label cells with formula
Wrap X axis labels with adding hard return in label cells
We can wrap the labels in the label cells, and then the labels in the chart axis will wrap automatically. And you can do as follows:
1. Double click a label cell, and put the cursor at the place where you will break the label.
2. Add a hard return or carriages with pressing the Alt + Enter keys simultaneously.
3. Add hard returns to other label cells which you want the labels wrapped in the chart axis. Then you will see labels are wrapped automatically in the chart axis.
Note: If the chart area is still too narrow to show all wrapped labels, the labels will keep rotated and slanted. In this condition, you have to widen the chart area if you need the labels wrapping in the axis.
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Wrap X axis labels with entering label cells with formula
Some users may want to wrap the labels in the chart axis only, but not wrap the label cells in the source data. Actually, we can replace original labels cells with formulas in Excel.
For example, you want to wrap the label of "OrangeBBBB" in the axis, just find out the label cell in the source data, and then replace the original label with the formula ="Orange"&CHAR(10)&"BBBB".
And you can wrap other labels with the same way. In our example, we replace all labels with corresponding formulas in the source data, and you can see all labels in the chart axis are wrapped in the below screen shot:
Notes:
(1) If the chart area is still too narrow to show all wrapped labels, the labels will keep rotated and slanted. In this condition, you have to widen the chart area if you need the labels wrapping in the axis.
(2) The formula ="Orange"&CHAR(10)&"BBBB" will wrap the labels in the source data too in Excel 2010.
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