Microsoft Excel Tutorial: The Mysterious Chart Label That Wouldn’t Update – Solved!

A completely evil Excel problem! A chart label refuses to update, no matter what you do. My friend Kelly sent me this chart, and everything seemed fine—except for one stubborn label that always says “Test 1.” Even after checking that the labels are correctly linked to a range using “Value From Cells,” this one label remains broken. After trying everything, I had to reach out to someone on the Excel team, and they finally gave me the answer.

Turns out, the label became disconnected from the data, and there’s a simple fix! Right-click on the labels, go to Format Data Labels, and click Reset Label Text. Boom—problem solved! But how did it break in the first place? In the second part of the video, I show exactly how this issue happens, so you can avoid it in your own charts.

I also explore whether this “feature” has any actual use. Could there be a scenario where you’d want to manually override a single label without changing the grid? If you’ve got a reason for this, let me know in the comments—I’m curious!

If you found this video helpful, Like, Subscribe, and Ring the Bell so you don’t miss future Excel tips! And if you’re here just for the fix, you’re all set. But if you want to see how it broke in the first place, stick around for the outtakes!

Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!

Buy Bill Jelen’s latest Excel book: https://www.mrexcel.com/products/latest/

Table of Contents
(0:00) Excel Chart Label Will Not Update
(1:18) Label is disconnected from Grid
(1:40) Button to Reset Label Text
(2:05) Wrap up for first question
(2:35) How to label XY Scatter Charts in Excel
(3:25) How did the Excel chart label disconnect from grid?
(4:00) The “broken” cell follows after sorting
(5:13) Is this feature useful at all?
(5:56) Comment If you ever used this?
(6:09) Wrap-up
(6:19) Outlaw Country song “The Excel chart won’t change” (excerpt)

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