After a couple hours of work I come to you guys with this graphing problem. I need to create a Milestone-Trend-Analysis which can be seen on the german wikipedia , though not in the english version.
General Information
In short, the diagram has report dates on the x-axis (for now, on every first of the month, another report is due).
The y-axis should mirror the x-axis completely. In length and also the tickmarks. The dates get bigger from the bottom to the top.
In my case the x-Axis is on top of the diagram.
Every report consists of a number of "due-dates", one for each assignement in progress. They are the estimated "finishing dates" of that particular assignement.
If the estimated finishing date stays the same in the next report period, the graph for that assignement stays on the same level. If the estimate is earlier, the graph trends down. Normally they go up, since the assignement has some delay :-D
The x-axis needs to be dynamic, since the whole project is basically finished when its last assignement is finished. If one of the assignements is running late, the whole project gets delayed an thus the x-axis needs to be longer/get more ticks.
Since the y-Axis mirrors that, it has to change too.
MY PROBLEM
The x-axis has a number of discreet values, since the reports come in every month, or every two weeks. But that does not change.
The values for the finishing dates are continuous, since the assignements can be terminated whenever.
That leaves me with the problem of having to cut the y-axis in equal-size chunks, although the months of the year are not equal in size. At least that is, what I think excel forces me to do.
I can assign a max limit and a min limit for the y-axis and I can assign a distance between each main tickmark. Since Excel works with a continous number for each date, the 2014/01/01 would be 41640. And 2015/01/01 is 42005. Since I have 12 month on the x-axis and I need 12 on the y axis, I would have to have the main Ticks at a distance of 30.42 ... which gives me the following Months on my axis
January January March .... December December
Does anyone know an answer for this? Is there a way to have excel make the tickmarks on the y-axis not equal distance?
Any input greatly appreciated.
Kaz
I did not find a way to make Excel have variable tick mark distances. But since I coud not have it that way, I had to make the month equally long.
This works for me now:
'calculate the norm for different type of month including Schaltjahr
Select Case cellMonth
'February
Case 2
'Schaltjahr and Schaltjahrhundert
If (cellYear Mod 4 = 0) Or (cellYear Mod 400 = 0) Then
resultDay = (30 / 29) * cellDay
Else
resultDay = (30 / 28) * cellDay
End If
'31 day months
Case 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12
resultDay = (30 / 31) * cellDay
'30 day months
Case Else
resultDay = cellDay
End Select
Now I just have to scale the axis to numberOfMonths * 30. It now leaves adjusting the names of the y-Axis, which seems to be a whole different story.
Kaz
You can put arbitrary labels along the Y axis by adding a dummy XY series.
Here is some data that I think captures your issue, plus a line chart showing the data, plus the data that I'll use to construct a dummy Y axis.
I used a line chart so the X axis at least would be easy. You just have to make sure that the axis is formatted as a date axis with Base Unit of Days.
Here is how I built the axis.
Top Left Chart Below: I copied the dummy axis data, both columns of the data includingt the header row. I selected the chart, and used Paste Special to add the data as a new series, data in columns, series names in first row, categories in first column (but don't replace existing categories).
Top Right Chart Below: I right-clicked on the added series, clicked on Change Series Chart Type, and selected XY Scatter with Lines and Markers. Excel also put this series onto the secondary axes.
Middle Left Chart Below: I formatted the added series to be plotted on the Primary axis.
Middle Right Chart Below: I changed the scale of the vertical axis, giving it a minimum of the first date and a maximum of the last (1/1/16 to 9/1/16).
Bottom Left Chart Below: I formatted the vertical axis to show no labels.
Bottom Right Chart Below: Format format format. I formatted the dummy axis series so it used light gary lines (matching the horizontal axis) and light gray cross markers (simulating tickmarks). I changed the tickmarks of the horizontal axis so they crossed the axis, matching the cross markers of the dummy series. I added data labels to the left of the dummy series points, simulating vertical axis labels.
Related
I am having issues creating a Bar graph in Excel. Currently, the Y-axis is a 'series' value input allowing for salability whereas, the x-axis is a 'categorical' input. I am trying to graph the 1st year earnings (y-axis) for each major at two Universities(UF-USF) with the number of graduates at the universities on the x-axis. I'm using the same population data for both so the columns overlap and can compare degree earnings between the universities. I managed to create a graph that has a "scaled" x-axis but, it's still categorical data so I cannot manipulate it- Figure 1. I want to make it look like Figure 2 while displaying the disproportionate number of graduates per the three degrees on the far right. I've already considered other graphs but must have a bar chart.
Figure 1: 'Scaled horizontal axis with Categorical input
https://gyazo.com/8e8d97bc2696113071d487ed96212b61
Figure 2: Overlapping University Bar Chart(Categorical X-axis)
https://gyazo.com/f1fbdebee4b1c4df27471c812d04da0e
Figure 3: Alternate Bar Chart without University Overlap (Categorical X-axis)
https://gyazo.com/3ed448c369827c0dd056fc151444df06
Figure 4: Data
https://gyazo.com/73ace8e16f481b5776a333911084b8a1
The 1st year, 5th year and 10th year earnings are in the data set. Until this is figured out, I'm only graphing 1st-year data.
Thank you!
I have sets of data like this:
And want to make a chart that looks like this in excel:
And I want to have the x-axis showing date 1-Jan until 31-Dec.
How to make a chart like that?
Although the question is slightly offtopic, I outline an answer as a starting point, as my solution would use VBA.
You could use a XY-Chart and VBA to add new data rows.
Some notes
Each Unit has an unique Y value assigned to it.
The first two (number of unique units) rows below the headline (1 & 2) are used to draw the green area, which start at 1st January and ends NOW().
The remaining rows are used to draw each downtime piece. They should be added via a macro.
Chart settings
Set X axis min and max to 01. Jan 2021 resp. 31. Dec 2021
Set line width to 40 px and End type to flat
Tweaks
Define the number of main labels on x axis
Add a datarow with (x=44197) and (y=Unit) to include Unit labels (Add labels, position left, show values in range,...)
Below is an Excel Chart for the data shown in column A (x-coordinates--dates) and column B (y-coordinates--test results). There's no problem with the column B data. But note that the horizontal axis shows quite a few more dates than are contained in column A.
Is there any way to have only the actual x-coordinates shown on the horizontal axis with a scale that matches those values?
I kind of get it. Excel deliberately scales the horizontal axis to match as best it can the data in column A. But I don't want that. Beneath each "corner" point of the graph, I'd like to see the date that is associated with the test result in column B.
In other words, there is clearly a point with y-coordinate 154.5. I'd like to see 2/13/2018 directly below that point since that is the data in row 5. Note that the x-axis contains the "correct" date for the first plotted point: (2/9/2017, 70). But for the point with y-coordinate 80, it looks as if that test result occurred on 6/9/2017 rather than 6/16/2018.
So I'd like the graph to appear as shown in the second image, which likely would be impossible because of the "crowding" of x-coordinate values at the right-hand end, but just displaying whichever of the three dates would fit would be good enough, as would just showing one of the two dates in other "crowded" areas. That is to say that something like the third image would be fine.
I suppose I could write VBA code to make it happen, but I'd prefer that Excel do it.
(What crosses my mind is, "Are exact dates really this important?" And the jury is still out on this point. There are arguments both ways. I guess a hung jury goes to the judge, Excel.)
By inserting the points to be plotted into two arrays, datesArr and scaledArr, and putting those values into columns A and B (see worksheet) and in code saying ...
Set ch = ActiveChart
Set s = ch.SeriesCollection
s(1).Values = scaledArray
s(1).XValues = datesArr
... I got exactly what I wanted. Now granted that's not exactly built-in, but we're programmers, yes? And this was downright easy. Well, once I learned a few tricks, especially being able to set angle of dates to 45 degrees.
You need to plot two sets of data, the actual values, and a set of zeros, then smoke and mirrors make it work.
Data below left, make a line chart (top left chart). Add data labels to the second series; I colored the labels orange to match the points, for clarity in this description. Default labels show Y values, which are all zero (top right). Format the data labels to show category values (i.e., dates), below the points, rotated upwards (bottom left). Format format format (bottom right). Axis labels: none. Format second series with medium gray lines and medium gray cross markers. Drag bottom of plot area upwards to make room for the date labels. Hide legend.
I want to plot a simple chart with Date on the X axis and Number on my Y axis. Tried XY scatter but Excel try to be smart and hide my data labels.
Also, Excel tried to re-order my Date which I do not want.
Date POS
22/10/2017 7
01/10/2017 14
08/09/2017 8
11/08/2017 6
28/07/2017 4
09/07/2017 3
26/06/2017 4
09/06/2017 11
19/05/2017 8
23/04/2017 8
02/04/2017 5
19/03/2017 1
19/02/2017 3
05/02/2017 10
30/01/2017 8
08/01/2017 3
20/11/2016 13
11/11/2016 7
28/10/2016 12
16/10/2016 5
30/09/2016 7
16/09/2016 3
27/08/2016 8
14/08/2016 13
24/07/2016 3
17/07/2016 7
17/06/2016 2
27/05/2016 4
24/04/2016 16
10/04/2016 1
27/03/2016 2
04/03/2016 4
19/02/2016 4
24/01/2016 1
03/01/2016 1
Would like to see everything. Is it possible ?
Thanks.
To answer your questions:
Brief:
1) You can't see all your data labels on the X axis unless you format the X axis to have major interval of 1.
2) With a scatter plot, you cannot have your original labels retained on the X axis and, in your case, as your dates are recognised , they are ordered as such. You would need to convert the dates to text and plot as a line chart without the line.
Solution:
1) Right click X axis and set the major interval to a balance between the amount of detail you want to see and that which is legible. To see all data points, with data that are whole numbers, then 1 should do it, but may become very crowded, so a trade-off.
2) To stop the re-ordering of your dates: The trick is to convert your dates to text using =TEXT(A2,"dd/mm/yy") where A2 is a data point for the X axis etc. In the picture below, this is showing above B39, as I have transposed your original dataset, but the formula was pointing at your original vertical dataset. If that makes sense.
You arrange your data horizontally with each data point in its own column (i.e. transpose your original data set) and then plot this as a line chart and right click format data series > no line. Making sure markers are visible.
On an old Mac with Excel 2011, similar process for Windows and later Excel, removing the line would look like:
And you can select a line colour and add it back in:
Reference i gave in comments which reminded me to transpose the data is scatter-chart-with-one-text-non-numerical-axis
To be honest, if you are going to plot a line chart which has one axis which appears to be dates, it may confuse users if those dates are not then in order.
I recommend to convert all values to date and graph away with standard scatter plot...if you treat the dates as text, and then graph only the entries, then the variance between the dates can be very misleading (unless there are no gaps, 100% consistent).
Below is a snippit of text and of dates with your provided data. It is nearly identical, but not quite. If your data set is larger and there is larger variation between date entries then it will definitely provide a misleading chart.
If you go with the text path, change to line chart, hide line, set color to markers, and put the max interval to 1.
If you go with the date path, then you will not be able to read the x-axis with each date explicitly stated. There would be too many dates to display. You could add data labels to display in the plot area instead of the x-axis, but it is clutter.
You have stumbled across what many also find, that Excel stinks as a graphing tool. This is because about 10 years ago, Micro Soft went stupid and started trying to make software that is "really helpful for the user" translate "makes stupid decisions we don't want". One case in point is your problem.
Excel Line charts are not line charts; they are bar charts that just use lines instead of bars. The issue at hand is how different chart types treat the X-Axis. How you treat the X-Axis determines what kind of chart you use. There are basically only two kinds of X-Axis: discreet/continuous (aka. category/value). For example category would be something like color (RED/BLUE/GREEN). There is no "distance between colors" (what is the distance between red and blue?). Where as numbers and time have a concept of distance inherent in them. For example: how many days are there between jan-1-2001 and jan-10-2001? or What is the distance from the 10 yard line and the 20 yard line?
The problem is that to use charts in Excel, you have to know how each chart type treats the X-Axis. Most people would expect the LINE chart to treat the X-Axis as a value, but MS is not most people so they decided to treat it like a category (unless it is a date more on that in a moment). So, you cannot plot a number X-Axis on a line chart. You should use the XY SCATTER chart instead. Scatter chart in Excel assumes both axis are numbers and thus plots your numeric X-Axis in the expected manner.
if you use a line chart (or bar chart) and you double click your x-axis values, or right click them, you can go to their format axis page where you will see that you have the choice of treating the x-axis as text or dates, but not numbers. This is why when you sort your data differently in a line chart or bar chart, the chart changes, it is because the x-axis is being treated as a category and categories are plotted on the chart in the order they are seen in the data. This can be very useful when your x-axis really is a category but then if that were so you would most likely be using bar charts not line charts. My experience is that BAR charts and LINE charts in Excel behave exactly the same so consider that when thinking about using a line chart.
if your x-axis is a category use bar chart or pivot table and exploit sorting.
if your x-axis is a date use bar/line chart and mark it as date in format-axis page.
if your x-axis is a number use scatter chart.
if your data is something else, or you have a specific perspective you want to emphasize, then do some reading about the different chart types in Excel and pick the one that was created to show what you want to show.
I have 2 data series, which records how much a user is meditating/attentive (out of 100) plotted onto a graph. The x axis is the number of seconds since the start of the experiment, and the y axis shows the value for meditation/attention at that point of time.
I have a 3rd set of data that is a series of key timestamps during the experiment (not exactly matching the timestamps from attention/meditation values).
I want to create a graph where you can compare how the attention/meditation values change at the key points
Whether the key points are highlighted by a line or dots I don't care. I tried adding the 3rd data set as a secondary axis, but it still uses the original x-axis of the main graph and I don't know how to make excel do what I want.
Thanks in advance
You should use an XY Scatter chart, not a line chart. A line chart ignores any numerical value in the X values, treats each X value as a text label, and uses the X values from the first series as X values for all series.
You can format the first two series so that they use lines and not markers, and the third so it uses markers without lines.
You may find this link helpful: superuser.com/questions/825692 You don't need to use the secondary axis, just add another series with tag times and constant 45 value, then format vertical error bars to 100% and horizontal to 0%.