Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 17, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Hao is running into a problem where his Y-axis titles are having the last 4 or 5 characters truncated, seemingly without rhyme or reason. In his case, the problem seems to be related somehow to the Analysis ToolPak, since the truncation doesn't occur until it is installed. Since he can't disable the Analysis ToolPak (he needs it to complete his calculations), Hao is wondering if others have run into the same problem and how they fixed it.
It seems that you're not the only one who has run into the problem, nor are you the only one who would love a solution. There doesn't seem to be a solution right now, but several subscribers provided workarounds that they use.
One possible workaround is to simply "pad" the end of the Y-axis title so that it contains inconsequential characters you don't mind having chopped off. For instance, you could add a few spaces at the end of the title, followed by a period. Or, you could try non-breaking spaces (without the period) by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Space Bar. If you pad the title with printable characters, you can format those characters so that they are the same color as the background.
It appears that the space allotted for the axis title by Excel is proportional to the size of the chart itself. This means that you may need to play with the chart size and see if enlarging it allows more of the axis title to be displayed. Some subscribers also reported success by adjusting the font size used for the axis title. For font sizes up to 26 or 28 points, the title would display correctly on a single line, but again this depended on the size of the chart itself.
Some people also got good results by adding a few spaces at the beginning of the axis title text. (Yes, at the beginning.) Why this works is unclear, other than it may force Excel to act as if there are spaces at the end, even though you didn't add any, in order to center the text in the available title space.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3126) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.
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