XL2000: How to Automatically Set Min and Max Scale for Y-Axis

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This article was previously published under Q213644

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel, you can set the Minimum and Maximum properties of the y-axis scale to any value. The example in this article shows the steps necessary to create a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications procedure that determines the minimum and maximum values contained in your data and sets the scale based on these values.

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MORE INFORMATION

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The following Visual Basic macro sets the minimum and maximum values for the y-axis scale in a chart to the maximum and minimum values of the data used to create the chart.

Type the following in a Visual Basic module sheet:

   Sub SetScaleToMinAndMaxValues()
      Dim ValuesArray(), SeriesValues As Variant
      Dim Ctr As Integer, TotCtr As Integer
      ' Uses the first chart on the active worksheet.
      With ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(1).Chart
         ' Note: Instead of the preceding line, you could use this line:
         '
         '    With ActiveChart
         '
         ' if you wanted to be able to run this macro on a chart sheet.
         ' Loops through all of the Series and retrieves the values
         ' and places them into an array named ValuesArray.
         For Each X In .SeriesCollection
            SeriesValues = X.Values
            ReDim Preserve ValuesArray(1 To TotCtr + UBound(SeriesValues))
            For Ctr = 1 To UBound(SeriesValues)
               ValuesArray(Ctr + TotCtr) = SeriesValues(Ctr)
               
            Next
            TotCtr = TotCtr + UBound(SeriesValues)
         Next
         ' Reset the minimum and maximum scale to the minimum and
         ' maximum values in the ValuesArray.
         .Axes(xlValue).MinimumScaleIsAuto = True
         .Axes(xlValue).MaximumScaleIsAuto = True
         .Axes(xlValue).MinimumScale = Application.Min(ValuesArray)
         .Axes(xlValue).MaximumScale = Application.Max(ValuesArray)
      End With
   End Sub

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Using the Macro

Select the worksheet that contains your chart.
To activate the macro, click Macro on the Tools menu, and run the SetScaleToMinAndMaxValues macro.

The minimum and maximum values of the y-axis should now be equal to the minimum and maximum values of the data.

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