* Open Excel
* File | Open
* fixed width (for most of your kind of data created by hand)
* for dates that are simply years, use text as the data type for that column
* Click on top left data entry, hold down shift key and drag to bottom of last column bottom entry
* Insert | Graph | x-y scatter and you should see your graph in the middle of your Excel page
* On top tool bar in Chart Tools | Design click on Layout 1
* Make text boxes so you can insert labels for your curves within the plot, by clicking Insert | shapes and selecting the text box symbol
* type in your labels inside the text boxes, then highlight the "series 1" etc on the extreme right and right click | delete
* To make your graph the right size, it should be on a separate page, so right click inside the chart somewhere, select move chart and then new sheet in the resulting diaglog box
* To save your chart, click under file | copy and then paste into Photoshop as usual. Save as TIFF for lossless and use in publications
