I've got a pivot chart which spans several years on the X axis, with data for each day. The problem is that there's a label on the X axis for each day, so they are too cluttered to be readable. I'd like to show just the months as labels instead of the days, and still see data points per day, but here's what I found so far:
Doing this is trivial in a normal chart, by going to the axis format settings, on the "Scale" tab, and setting the major unit to "Month(s)". This field does not exist in the same tab for a pivot chart.
I can set "Number of categories between tick-mark labels" on the pivot chart, but of course they don't line up with the months.
I can set the pivot table to use the month instead of the day, but then a lot of resolution is lost.
Setting Charts(1).Axes(xlCategory).MajorUnitScale = xlMonths doesn't seem to do anything.
You can group the X axis by more than one value, such as by Days and Months. Unfortunately it doesn't eliminate the clutter of the labels for each day, but it does superimpose the Month on the axis.
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 got a horizontal axis that holds numbers (roughly 7,5 through 18 at 0,5 intervals) based on the set filters.
I would like it to always show the 7,5 though 18 on the horizontal axis, even if the filtered only is applicable 10 to 12,5 for example.
Thing is, the axis options do not show bounds to set as I have found to appear in other solutions:
I've double checked to make sure my axis data is formated as numbers:
In case of possible relevancy, the formula used to calculate the day time indicator is
=mround((mod(GDQ[Timestamp];1)*24);0,5)
Is there a way to have the horizontal axis always show start through end plotting the filtered data always on the same timeframe?
I had exactly the same issue, and solved it on the pivot table side.
Go to the field setting (in your case for the day/time indicator, your x-axis), then to the tab "Layout & Print", and activate "Show items with no data".
Now every category will always show up in the pivot table, even with no data after you do some filtering with your slicer, and the layout of the graph will remain constant (axis limits).
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.
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.
I have an XY plot in Excel with some water level data, and I wanted to add a set of precipitation data as bars to help correlate changes in water level. However, there is no option to add dates for the precipitation data, and the bars don't have the same scale as the water level data. I tried using Julian calendar dates to resolve the issue, but that didn't help. How can I fix this?
Water level and precipitation both as Y vs dates as X?
Make a line chart of both sets of data. Right-click on the precip series in the chart, choose Change Series Chart Type, and select a column type. If the scale is way off, you can format the precip to go on the secondary axis, so it will be plotted on the right axis scale.