In Excel 2003, when you created a XY chart using time as an axis, you could set the scaling of these axes by typing in the date. In Excel 2007, you have to use the decimal version of the time (eg. How many days since some arbitrary earlier date). I was wondering if there was a way to avoid having to make such a calculation?

A developer posted on a blog that this issue would be fixed in a future release, but all versions of Excel 2007 I have tried have not resolved this issue. The relevant quote:

Those of you familiar with this technique of converting time to a decimal may recall that Excel 2003 allowed you to enter a date and time like “1/1/07 11:00 AM” directly in the axis option min/max fields and Excel would calculate the appropriate decimal representation. This currently does not work in Excel 2007 but will be fixed in a subsequent release.