I would like to ask for your help on two major problems I have with an Excel (2003) chart:
1) I would like to create a chart which has got 25 grids (5 on the x axis and 5 on the y axis). The number of grids must not change, i.e. data should have no impact on the size, length and number of grids (several different worksheets are used as input to the chart). How can I create such a chart without having different grid lenghts depending on data?
2) I need a chart which has 25 grids, with each grid being colored differently, e.g. for example 3 grids in the upper right corner are red, 3 grids in lower left corner are green, inbetween all grids are colored white. I have read some articles on creating charts with a quadrant background, i.e. 4 grids, each having a different color. But I would like to know how I can create multi colored background for 25 grids?
Many thanks in advance!!
Regards,
Since you don't want to use VBA, there are a number of hand steps that are needed to create the grid chart you are looking for. For the most part, these steps can be taken in any order.
Enter what will be the horizontal column labels in a 1 x 5 cell range in your worksheet.
In the 5 x 5 cell range immediately below, enter the value 1 in each cell.
Selecting the 6 x 5 cell range, insert a 100% Stacked Column chart into the worksheet. You will now have a chart with of bars with five horizontal bands, each of a different color.
Delete the legend.
Select one of the bands to format and set its Gap Width to "No Gap."
Insert a chart title and horizontal and vertical axis titles, if any.
Select each band (data series) and set its fill color to solid fill white and its border color to solid line black.
Select the chart area and set its height and width to identical values.
Lock the chart area's aspect ratio.
Select and set the fill color of each data point (grid cell) that you want in a contrasting color.
(I am unaware of any way to dynamically set the colors of the grid cells based upon different data values, other than via VBA.)
If you want to change the font size of the labels of one of the axes, be sure to set the other axis to the same size to preserve the square grid layout.
Set the major tick mark type of the vertical axis to None, and the font color of the vertical axis labels to white.
At this point, you may want to shift the plot area to the left so that there is more white space between the right borders of the plot area and the chart area.
Select the chart area and then insert a text box over the vertical axis label area.
Enter into the text box the vertical axis labels that you want to show, with a blank line between each label, and with the font size and color of your choice.
Move the text box vertically so that, by eye, the first of labels in the text box is by eye aligned vertically with the center of the top row of the grid.
Select the blank line between the first two labels in the text box and change the line's font size so that, again by eye, the second label is aligned vertically with the center of the second grid row. Continue with the three remaining labels.
If you want finer control of the alignment of the labels, insert a second line between the each pair of labels and set the font size for the second lines in a smaller font than the first lines.
This text box is the only element of the chart that will not automatically resize if you change the size of the chart.
Other than any minor tweaking of the font sizes or alignment of the chart title and the axis labels, the chart is done:
Related
Within this picture, an Excel chart is displaying approximately 100 values + times (red curve):
Excel is "intelligent enough" to reduce the number of the displayed "Category" date+time texts (here: by the factor 6) because otherwise the texts would overlap each other. But the Excel chart still displays ALL the vertical (dark gray) grid lines where my value table contains time markers.
IF my data table contains even more (e.g. 1000) time values, then the displayed "Category" date+time texts are automatically reduced e.g. by the factor 60. But then the chart background is completely covered by vertical grid lines and does not show its background color any more at all.
In fact I would like to keep/show only those vertical grid lines where a Category (time) text is shown, i.e. ONLY at my green lines.
So how to to reduce the number of the displayed vertical grid lines ?
Thanks a lot
I created a custom data label series using "Value From Cells" to have a label at the end of the chart displaying the current value. Unfortunately, the axis labels are "on top"/"in front" of the data label. Is there any way to change this (VBA or otherwise)?
I just came up with a kind of absurd workaround. I'll do my best to explain it here in case anyone else comes across this.
To make this easier, the point I want the data label for will be called A. This is the latest value of the original series that should be labeled off to the right of the chart.
I removed the old data labels.
I created a scatter plot with one point: (0,y). The y value was set to A as a percentage of the minimum to maximum y-axis range. So if A is 3 and the y-axis range is -2 to 10, then the y-value would be 3/(10 - -2) = 3/12 = .25. So the result would be a scatter plot with one point at (0,.25).
I made everything on the scatter plot chart (e.g. plot area) invisible EXCEPT the one scatter plot point. This gives me a floating scatter point that moves up and down the y-axis, depending on the percentage calculated above.
I added a y-axis to the scatter plot, and set the minimum to 0 and the maximum to 1. I then removed the axis. This was only to set that min/max.
I moved my scatter plot so that the top/bottom of the plot area was exactly even with the top/bottom of the plot area of my original chart. So now, I have a single point that is moving up and down along the height of the original chart's plot area. Its up/down position is determined by A, and it will line up exactly with the y-position of A (because that's how I designed it).
I added a data label to the scatter plot and hid the scatter plot series. So now, I have my data label in the correct up/down position (lined up with the A).
Change the data label "Label Options" --> "Label Contains" to "Value From Cells". Then reference a cell with A's value that we want displayed (instead of the % value we used to get the up/down position right).
Last step is just to move the scatter plot left/right until it's in the perfect spot to the right of the plot area, and done!
Then repeat that miserable process for 16 charts with copy/paste when possible. Hope this helps someone else!
I am trying to make a scatter plot in Excel with text as horizontal axis labels.
I have the data
and I want a chart like this
The way I produced this chart was to have a scatter plot with numeric X values and numeric Y values, so instead of Poland I have X=1 and Y=10, Y=11, Y=12, and Y=9. For Germany I chose X=2 and Y=8 and Y=7. I just added some text boxes with the names to hide the numeric X values.
But I want this to be dynamic, so I tried to set the X value labels here:
but I am not able to change the horizontal values.
How can I solve this problem?
You need a helper series. Consider the following screenshot:
The blue dots are plotted from the data in the table on the left. The orange dots are plotted from the helper table. Each orange dot then has a data label assigned. Edit each data label individually, type a = character and click the cell that has the corresponding text.
This process can be automated with the free XY Chart Labeler add-in. Excel 2013 and newer has the option to include "Value from cells" in the data label dialog.
Format the data labels to your preferences and hide the original x axis labels.
How do I recreate the following chart/image?
I don't know how to create a border with the padded header etc.
I'm trying to plot 6 timeseries side by side in excel. The default 3d bar charts and surface plots almost do the right thing. The problem is the timeseries are laid on the z-axis as I expected but they're jammed so close together you can't read the labels.
I've tried changing the tick interval and re-sizing the chart. Re-sizing the chart only seems to affect the x and y axis lengths leaving the z-axis pretty much the same short useless length.
How do I change the z-axis length in Excel?
To adjust the z-axis size, do the following:
Select Layout/3D Rotation on the ribbon. A 3d rotation dialog box opens.
Ensure 3D Rotation is highlighted on the dialog's left pane and then deselect Autoscale at bottom the right pane in the dialog box.
To lengthen the z-axis, increase the Depth percentage from 100 to 200, 300 or whatever is needed to accommodate your z-axis labels.
A few other points - the graph itself is contained in a picture within the chart panel. You can lengthen the z-axis somewhat by clicking on the chart to select the chart's frame and then resize the frame.
If you're plotting time series data using the 3d bar graph, you can click on a specific bar and Excel will show you the datum value that produced the bar.
To look on the backside of the graph to see if there are hidden values, set the x-axis rotation to 135. Lengthening the z-axis alleviates the issue somewhat as it spreads the series further apart and lets you see "behind" the front series a bit better.