I have 3 columns of data, eg:
http://i.stack.imgur.com/XjGmu.jpg
When Excel creates a line graph of this, the blue line is what i get.
This is not correct because the time stamp shows the time when something is switched on (255) or off (0) (could also be the current state eg 16:08). So I'd like a graph like this - see the red line (with a time-based X axis off course):
http://i.stack.imgur.com/vNvPk.jpg
Anyone can help? Thanks
As #Jon49 indicated, you need to plot additional data points--two y values for each x value: one to plot the point at y=255 and one to plot y=0.
If the time-span of the data is at least a few days, you can use a line chart. But in your case since the values are within a day, the scatter chart with straight lines is the only option due to the limitations of the scale units for line charts.
The key is the values need to be in the correct order. Each y=255 value needs to be followed by the next time-stamp's 255 value followed by it's 0 value, followed by the next time-stamp's 0 value:
Excel doesn't support this type of discrete value graph (at least not excel 2k3 that I am using); your best bet is to use a bar graph and then go into the settings and set the gap width down to zero.
Not sure what the best way is but I would automate what I describe below on how to do (unless this is a one time deal, then just brute force it):
Separate the 255s from the 0s. Make sure for every 0 time there is a corresponding 255 time. Take the zero times and put in a scatter plot then add a y-error bar and make the fixed value equal to 255. Format to how you like it.
Now for the 255s. Add those to the chart by pairs. Make the chart type for these pairs scatter plot with a line. Format how you would like them to look.
Let me know if that doesn't make sense to you.
Related
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 wanted to make a dynamic chart that plots out the graph of a standard curve for a bio assay we perform frequently. Often to boost the fit of the curve you may drop one or two data points on either end of the data set. So using vlookups and if statements I have a scheme that performs that data trimming, such that my data always starts in Row 1 and the column length simply shortens.
My table works great, but my xy scatter chart goes bananas on these changes. I have the plot on a log log scale, which looks fine if the full data set is present. I lose the x axis detail when I perform a trim. The x- axis then resets to range of 1 to length of my data set.
How can I prevent this?
UPDATE
I added some information. I know there are VBA ways to do this but I would prefer to keep the spreadsheet as simple as possible. I would think excel should be able to handle this.
So if I have a bad fit I may want to trim the data series either from the beginning or end of the data set. I accomplish that with the spinner buttons to dynamically change the table but the following happens
My formula that updates the columns looks like the following. Its messy.
=IF(ISNA(IF(VLOOKUP(F6,$C$4:$D$11,2,FALSE)+1>8-($B$5-1),"",INDEX(C$4:C$11,VLOOKUP(F6,$C$4:$D$11,2,FALSE)+1))),"",IF(VLOOKUP(F6,$C$4:$D$11,2,FALSE)+1>8-($B$5-1),"",INDEX(C$4:C$11,VLOOKUP(F6,$C$4:$D$11,2,FALSE)+1)))
In the formulas use NA() instead of "". Filling cell with "" does not result in a true empty cell and is the reason why you are experiencing issues with your chart.
Hope that helps.
I may be missing the obvious here, but just hard-code the graph with a range of your choosing. In the sample screenshot, making the graph auto defaults the max range to 100,000. I went in and hard-coded the maximum to 50,000 (circled). Afterwards, the 5th data point is not displayed in the chart. Doesn't matter what the data shows at this point.
My problem is as follows:
The user inputs two numbers between 2 and 25, these numbers are used to create a grid. Every point on the grid has (x,y) coordinates. Based on the amount of points the user chose, my excel sheet is filled up with up to 25x25 (x,y) coordinates.
Example: A 6x7 grid is chosen by the user, the table is filled with 42 (x,y) coordinates and all other values in the table are set to "".
Now I want to use a scatterplot with lines connecting each array to plot the data.
Problem 1: If I only select the 6x7 part of the table that has values in it and create the scatterplot the result is correct. Until the user specifies a different grid, for example 8x9, then the graph is obviously missing two rows and two columns of input data.
Problem 2: If I select the entire 25x25 part of the table, including all the "" values, the graph axes get messed up. The y-axis works properly, but the x-axis shows sequential values (0-7) instead of the x-coordinates.
Problem 3: If I replace all the "" values in the table to 0 or NaN and plot the entire table the axes are correct, but the lines between the scatter data get messed up.
Question:
Is there a way to automatically change the input data for the plot, or is there a way to correctly display the values on the x-axis if I select all the data?
Not sure this will work in your case, but it's worth a try, especially since no one's addressed your post in 3+ hours. I've had success with this approach: 1) charting the largest data set, 2) copying the resulting chart, and 3) trimming the data it draws from to produce all smaller data sets.
To get this to work takes a lot of thought in laying out that largest data set so that all the other plots follow as needed. To illustrate, I've somewhat mimicked your data and in the animated gif I show largest data set, plus 2 others produced by copying it. Then I demonstrate how to make the second one, including the rescaling required to make all plots scaled equally. Notice that I've arranged things so that only one set of x-values feeds all the series. If you can do this, it makes working with the Excel's interface much easier.
After wrestling with it all night I came to the following solution:
Instead of setting all the empty cells to "" or zero the cells should be be set to #N/A (not available). The graph properly ignores the #N/A cells exactly like I want it to and updates when values are entered into them.
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%.
I have a table (came from a pivot table) where I have formatted the column 4 cells to show 1 billion as 1. But when I select the table and insert a chart, I am getting my units in millions. So the 14.8 billion number for Mexico is showing up as 14,800 on the chart. Why might this be happening and how can I fix this? This is also making all my other bars negligibly small. Note that the first three columns are not in billions and are totally different things. Some are percentages, some are other small numbers.
Table:
Chart:
You need a secondary horizontal axis and some formatting on the Axes.
In Excel 2013
First change the Chart Type to Combo and select Clustered Bar for both sets of data, then Check
Secondary Axis for the Percentage Series.
Then set up the axis limits so they match, e.g.
Percentage: min -.5 max 2
Billions: min -5e9 max 20e9
Then set the percentage format on the source data to a custom Number format of "";(0)%;0%
Then set the Billions format as 0,,,;"";0
You will get something like this:
EDIT
Now that we have the general principles, we can apply them to your specific data.
I will also switch to Excel 2010 do show the different menus.
The data selection looks like this
Select the non-Billion series (plural!) and check the secondary axis
If the larger data is always positive then you can use custom formatting to clean up the axis
Align the primary and secondary axes so that the grid lines match on both
The end result is clean and readable.
Mixing percentages and numbers for the smaller numbers is not handled by this but I would suggest that that would be confusing anyway?
The simplest way to fix this might be to plot cells containing the billions values divided by 10^9 rather than to plot the billions themselves, though via a secondary axis may be possible.
Using Excel 2007. For the purple bars, the example on the left uses ColumnE values, on the right ColumnF values. E1 contains =F1/10^9 and F1 contains =14800000000:
It appears that there are 3 questions here: 1) "Why might this be happening", 2) "how can I fix this", and 3) something like "how can I plot data which lie on two widely differing ranges, and make them all reasonably visible anyway", even if there was no explicit question on this.
There are several ways to solve issue #2 about the units (e.g., billions) and numbers (e.g., 14.8 vs. 14,800.0) shown in the axis, each one with its own pros and cons:
Use Format Axis -> Axis Options -> Display units.
This might be the answer to your issue #1 as well, you might have the following selection: Display units -> Millions, and unchecked Show display units... Otherwise, I wouldn't know why you chart shows what it shows.
Use faked tick marks, as indicated in the (excellent) site of Jon Peltier
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/ArbitraryAxis.html
It gives detailed instructions on how to create tick marks on an axis with arbitrary labels (which may be text, numbers, etc.), which is more generic than what the OP wants here. In this particular case, the labels will be the desired numbers.
Create new cells containing data that would be plotted exactly the way you want.
As for your issue #3, I guess the only option is to have a Secondary Axis (see the answer by pnuts).
Thus, to come up with the best final chart for you might use a combination of one of the options I gave here and a secondary axis.