Logarithmic Scale in Excel

Logarithmic scales are useful when the data you are displaying is much less or much more than the rest of the data.

You can use the logarithmic scale Excel (Excel log scale) in the Format Axis dialogue box to scale your chart by a base of 10. What this does is it multiplies the vertical axis units by 10, so it starts at 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 1000000…

For example, when your Scatter plot looks like this:

It seems like sample’s distances 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are close to 0, but they are not. So this time, we need to use Logarithmic Scale to visualize the dataset:

1. Right-click any value on the vertical axis and then click Format Axis.
2. In the Format Axis dialog box under Axis Options, scroll down for a Logarithmic Scale check box. Go ahead and select that.
3. Leave the base at 10 (because we’re dealing with powers of 10 for scientific values)

Remember to note that this is Logarithmic Scale chart so that viewers will not misunderstand the relation between those values.