Linear scales are used in architecture, engineering and cartography to communicate the relative measurements of an object. Use Excel's built-in tools to create, customize and modify a linear scale.

Excel defaults to a linear scale for graphs, but you can easily change it to logarithmic to suit wide data ranges or logarithmic phenomena. The Chart Wizard produces graphs with linear scales.

How to create color scales in Excel If you prefer, you can also use color scales rather than data bars.