In Spotfire, I am trying to draw three horizontal curves from columns in a different data table than my plot. These lines are supposed to be target lines. I know I can do this either in a combination chart or in Lines & Curves in properties.
However, I prefer not to do it in a combination chart as I have to add colouring and I get many distinct series when I add colouring to three different target lines.
So I tried doing this by adding a horizontal line in "Add > Horizontal Line > Line From Data Table". However instead of drawing a curve what this does is draw multiple horizontal lines for the slightly fluctuating values in this column. I have also tried other options in Lines & Curves but none seem to work. And this happens although I have matchedthe data tables.
Does anyone have an idea how I can draw these target lines while avoiding the situation linked below?
The situation now:
The red, purple and black lines are supposed to be 3 seperate lines.
I think you are very close. Try the Properties > Lines and Curves and then Add > Line From Column Values. You will need to specify the x and y axis from the data table.
This will not always work on a bar chart, as the x may not line up with your category axis on the bar chart. Your x-axis for the line will need to be the same as the category axis.
Related
So, I want to keep only 1 red axis line. By default it shows or removes both of them, shows 1 line for each "row".
Don't know how to change my excel to english, sorry.
You need to use some tricks for this. Use an XY Scatter chart and plot the two lines as two series, one for the horizontal line, one for the vertical line.
Then format the axes to the desired maximum and remove all the grid lines.
If you want only specific numbers to show on the axes, remove the axis labels altogether and use data labels for data points instead.
Please have a look at This Excel chart. Here is a screenshot:
Here is the data:
There is a scatter series of blue of dots (plus a trendline) and a green area series. The chart data are contained within the series.
The problem I have is that the x-axis values of the two series are not aligned. For example, the second and third blue dots at x = 3.1 and x = 3.8 are in the correct place along the x-axis, but in the green area series they appear to be above x = 2.0 and x = 3.3. How to fix this?
Change the Scatter to a Line Chart, then format Line Color so that there is "No Line". Add trendline.
There may be another way to do this while retaining the Scatterplot, I'm not sure, but this seems to be visually what you're looking for, but I think you will need to use a Line Chart for this unfortunately. The problem is summarized in this similar Q on SuperUser:
https://superuser.com/questions/964264/aligning-stacked-bar-chart-w-scatter-plot-data
The short answer is that your combining (unsuccessfully) a categorical series (the columns) with interval/ratio series (the line charts). So, Excel doesn't know how to plot your categories (columns) on an interval scale (the current X axis).
You can verify this by selecting Chart > Layout > Axes > Secondary Horizontal Axis > More Secondary Horizontal Axis Options. Without making any changes to the axes configuration, the second X-axis will now appear along the bottom of the chart, and you can see it is scaled differently from your Scatter data.
I.e., in the Scatter series, the data is X/Y pairs. But in your Area chart, it treats the X-values as categorical, and in this context "1.1" is no different than "Bob" -- it is a cardinal representation of the data rather than an ordinal representation.
The problem I have is that the x-axis values of the two series are not aligned.
So even though the two series appear to share the same set of X-Values, the Chart is simply incapable of treating those as the same type of data. The x-axes are not aligned because they are not the same data or even the same type of data!
All that said, if you change both series to XY Scatter, it is possible (with some extraordinary effort) to apply shading/coloring below a series or between two series, etc.
http://peltiertech.com/fill-under-between-series-in-excel-chart/
http://chandoo.org/wp/2013/02/13/shaded-line-charts-excel/
What you can do is plot the Area graph on a secondary axis. Then go to Chart -> Layout -> Axes -> Display Secondary Horizontal Axis to see the axis, right click for its properties and change the type of the Axis Type to "Date axis". This (kind of) changes the axis to a numerical type, as opposed to a category type.
However, the area graph will still be placed incorrectly too far to the right because Excel will continue to plot the series as a (kind of) category type, with its data points appearing in the centre of each category as opposed to at the correct x value like in an XY scatter plot.
To get the graphs overlaying the most correctly, you can create a Scaled-up x value series which is, say, 1,000 times the original x-values and use this for the x-values of the area plot. By scaling by 1,000 or 10,000, you eventually get the granularity to a point where it looks more like X-Y plot, but is actually an area plot, and the graphs look like they coincide perfectly.
So I am trying to make a nice line graph for some data that I have. Each line has 100 data points, so excel automatically makes the horizontal axis from 1-100. I want to change the min/max values for the horizontal axis from 0-1, without moving the frame of the graph (i.e. without zooming in the graph). I just want to divide the horizontal axis numbers by 100 in order to rescale the time. This is what my graph looks like now:
http://imgur.com/33KD7RY
So I want to change the numbers on the horizontal axis to be fractions or decimals in the range [0,1]. Does anyone know how I can do this, or any other graphing software that would allow me to do this (I have tried using google sheets, but they have less options to customize axes than excel). Thank you!
Did you use two column to plot one line and did you use the Scatter with smooth lines chart type?
Have one column (X) go from 0 to 1 using intervals of 0.01 and your data in your second column (Y). When using a scatter with smooth lines chart type your answer should look like this:
image graph
Plotting your second line in the same chart can be done the same way by adding it through the 'select data' options of the chart.
I have a combo chart in excel, with clustered bar charts (for a box plot) and lines. I am trying to display the bar charts/box plot in front of the lines, but am able to do so.
I tried moving the bar charts to the top and/or bottom in "select data" - but no change.
Any suggestions?
Am using Excel 2013.
Thanks!
I believe it is not possible. You can change display ordering of Excel series by:
changing the plot order of the series (this is what you have done in the "Select data" dialog),
changing the axis on which the series are displayed (series on secondary axis are displayed over the series on the primary axis).
But from my experiments no combination of changes makes the lines appear behind the columns.
There are two workarounds that might or might not help you:
you can create two charts on top of each other and put the chart with the lines behind the one with the columns,
or you could create a line chart (most likely you would need scatter chart), that is not a single line but a series of segments where the columns are not shown (this one is not that easy to do)
What are the lines for? If you are just trying to identify some zones along the value axis, you could instead use stacked areas, which would give a banded appearance. Areas are always drawn behind bars and columns, while lines are always drawn in front of lines and columns.
I know how to draw a line with scatter plot options where X is the independent and Y the dependent variable.
In the scatter plot of that data I need to add another line: X=2. I have the following data:
But how to draw a line X=1 ?
Maybe you want something like this:
I hear that charting is more different than many other aspects of Excel between versions and that perhaps my version (Excel 2007) is one of the least ‘friendly’ hence some of the reason for “not very easy” but the principle is as #Bill the Lizard has described. In view of some weird behaviour with (my?) Excel 2007 however I recommend being careful about the sequence in which the lines are drawn.
First I suggest getting your chart right for all aspects but the green line. Then add another series with X values of 1 and 1 and Y=2 values of 10 and -2 (or whatever the limits are of your chosen y-axis as displayed). Select and copy that array (four cells) select your chart and Paste Special…, and Add cells as New Series, Columns, Categories (X Values) in First Column, OK.
This should add a vertical line of the same chart type as the existing (ie XY (Scatter) Scatter with Straight Lines and Markers). The colour can be changed, by selecting that series (click on it and Format Data Series…, Line Color etc) and presumably you would want the markers removed. It was these that for me at first refused to disappear to order – but persistence paid off. Click on either of the data points, and under Marker Options choose none for Marker Type. If necessary, repeat for the other data point – and keep repeating if required!
Also, I selected what was showing as Series3 (text) in the legend and deleted that.
Forgot to mention that for anything to do with Excel charts Jon Peltier is the ultimate authority (eg) and that an alternative approach is to use an error bar and a secondary vertical axis.