How to annotate (label) scatter plot points in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet

I usually prefer to use either Python or Matlab to generate plots, but one of my scatter plots had many points and when I tried to annotate using the code, the plot did not look very nice. So, I had to use MS XLSX sheet to generate the scatter plot with annotation. Here are the steps that I tried to generate the plot:

  1. Copy your x-data, y-data, and label values in a spreadsheet. Select x-data and y-data, click on “Insert” in the menu and then select scatter plot from the “Charts” area.How to annotate/label scatter plot points in Microsoft XLS spreadsheet
  2. On the plot, right click on one of the points and select “Add Data labels”.scatter plot with annotation
  3. By default, it will put values of the y-data as labels of the points. To change the default value, double-click on any point on the plot. It will show “Format Data Labels” on the right side of the spreadsheet. scatter plot with annotation
  4. Click on “Lable Options” on “Format Data Labels” panel. Select “Value From Cells” and unselect all other options. It will open a small pop-up which will say “Select Data Label Range”.scatter plot with annotation
  5. Now, select the label values you want to put. In the above figure, I have selected the values from column ‘A’. This will put the desired labels for those data points.scatter plot with annotation
  6. If your data points are very close, you can move those labels around using your mouse.scatter plot with annotation

That’s so simple. Hope it helps.

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