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How do I create a 'Supply and Demand' style chart in Excel?


If you need to produce a 'supply and demand' style chart using Excel, the following procedure for Excel 2013 and Excel 2010 could be useful:

1. Open a new Excel spreadsheet and enter the data in a table as shown in this example.

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2. From the Insert tab, Chart group, choose Scatter and click on the icon for Scatter with Straight Lines (if you hover over the icon, the full description is shown).

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3. A chart will then appear with the familiar shape of the Supply and Demand diagram. However, the Price values are, by default, shown on the X-axis. The usual convention is to put the Price on the Y-axis and the following steps show how to switch the values around.

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4. Right-click on the chart and choose Select Data from the mini menu.

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5. Highlight the first row of data (Qs in this example) and then click on Edit.

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6. Delete the contents of the boxes for the X and Y axes.

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7. With the cursor in the box for the Y-axis values, highlight the price values in your table.

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8. Now click into the box for the X-axis values and highlight the supply values in the table (Qs in the example shown) and click OK.

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9. Repeat steps 5 to 8 for the second row of data (Qd) and when you click on OK, you will see that the chart has been rearranged with values for Price listed on the Y-axis.

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Created by David Guest on 29 October 2010 and last updated by Paul Ryan on 18 August 2015