Setting Grid Line Intervals for a Radar Chart

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 12, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365

John created a radar chart that includes 360 data points, one for each of the 360 degrees in the chart. Excel adds radial grid lines for each of those data points, but John would prefer to have a grid line only every 10 degrees in the chart. He wonders how he can customize the chart to reflect the desired grid lines.

There is no way to accomplish this task that we've been able to discover. A radar chart, as implemented by Excel, is a "circular" version of a line chart. Just as the horizontal axis of a line chart has one mark per data point, the radar chart has one spoke per data point.

There are other types of circular charts supported by Excel, and a different one may be more suitable for the way you want data represented. One good possibility is a polar plot. For good discussion of how you might go about this, see this blog post by Jon Peltier:

http://peltiertech.com/polar-plot-excel/

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11190) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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