Table of contents

  1. Line styles
  2. Axis labels and tick marks
  3. Legends or keys
  4. Long category names
  5. Subcategories
  6. Chart titles
  7. Chart labels
  8. Labelling values in a chart
  9. Annotation and footnotes
  10. Source

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Axis labels and tick marks

Continuous data axes

For continuous data axes centrally align labels over tick marks.

Example of how to format continuous data axes

The x axis of a chart with the dates labelled on the tick marks, increasing by one year from 2000 to 2004.

Categorical data axes

For categorical data axes labels should be aligned between tick marks.

Example of how to format categorical data axes

The x axis of a chart labelled with category names placed between tick marks. Categories are Green, Blue, Red and Yellow.

Using more ticks than labels

You can use more tick marks than labels; ticks indicate the scale or level of detail of the data.

Label the final tick if there are more ticks than labels and there is space to do so.

Example of how to format ticks and labels

Economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years
UK, January 1980 to October 2014

A line chart showing the inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years, with dates on the x axis increasing every five years from January 1980 to October 2014.