Axis with 2 labels

[BillO]

Hi

I am doing a line chart and would like two labels for the x axis
accompanying the same data point. The problem I am having is the formatting
of the labels. I would like to fit them in both with the same orientation
(vertical). But only one label goes vertical when I do this. There is a
column for one label (date), and another for ID (which is a #).

thanks

 

[Del Cotter]

I am doing a line chart and would like two labels for the x axis
accompanying the same data point. The problem I am having is the formatting
of the labels. I would like to fit them in both with the same orientation
(vertical). But only one label goes vertical when I do this. There is a
column for one label (date), and another for ID (which is a #).

Yes, that's a problem with having two labels on the X axis.

Are you prepared to go radical and abandon the Microsoft-provided axis
facility? If so, you can create your own customised X axis with all the
properties you want, by creating a data series, labelling it, and
formatting it to look like an axis. For two labels you either want a
specially-formatted label, or more likely two series.

Have a look at the "Arbitrary axis" examples on Jon Peltier's "Chart
Axes and Axis Tricks" page:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/axes.html#ArbAxis

Tushar Mehta's "Flexible log scale" tutorial is about Y axes, but the
principles are the same, and it may help you if you get stuck.

http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/newsgroups/flexible_log_scale/

 

[John Mansfield]

Another option would be to concatenate your ID numbers and dates together
into one X-Axis range as opposed to two. For example, given your ID numbers
in column A and your dates in column B, add a formula similar to the one
below into column C:

=B1&" | "&TEXT(A1,"dd/mm/yy")

Then reference your X-Axis off of column C.

 

[Kelly O'Day]

BillO:

Del's arbitrary axis suggestion is a good one. Here a link to my how-to
tutorial on custom axes.
http://processtrends.com/pg_charts_custom_axis.htm.

I have a two label y axis example at this link.
http://processtrends.com/toc_chart_doctor.htm#Dot_Plot_with_2_Level_Y_Axis_Labels

While it takes a little patience to master custom axes, once you do you can
start making Excel do things you never thought possible.

Kelly

http://processtrends.com

 

[Del Cotter]

While it takes a little patience to master custom axes, once you do you can
start making Excel do things you never thought possible.

If I was designing a charting module for spreadsheets today, I would
make axes be just another kind of data series, with marker types
available for correct appearance and a chart wizard for worry-free setup
by non-expert users.

This actually mirrors the way I was taught graphing as a child at
school: the "x-axis" was always referred as the line obeying the
equation y=0, and the "y axis" was always called x=0. The idea was to
encourage children to understand that there is nothing special or magic
about those parts of graph space, and especially nothing particularly
magic about the origin point (0,0).

(although it mainly confused and annoyed me at the time because I got
the language mixed up: was x=0 the x axis?

I have had colleagues freak out when they see me do axes that aren't on
the zero line, especially when I do the custom axis trick of not having
the two axes joined at one corner, but each floating free with a gap of
white space. They understand better when I call them "scale bars" and
compare them to the scale bars on a map, with the graph space analogous
to a map area.

 

[Jon Peltier]

Del -

I guess my own idea of "axes" intuitively incorporates your "scale bars",
which is why I've been able to easily incorporate all kinds of axis effects
in my work. (Also I learned computer charting on an HP plotter, using HPGL
commands to move a pen around the page. I had to do all my own
determinations of scales, tick and label location, etc.) Other people aren't
so intuitive with this, which is why it sometimes takes an hour or a dozen
emails to get the idea across.

- Jon

 

[Kelly O'Day]

Del:

We think alike.

If I were redoing Excel's charting tool, I'd drop the XY (Scatter) Chart -
Line Chart terminology. To me, all 2 D charts are XY charts; scatter and
line charts are just special forms of XY charts. How many questions show up
on the Chart forum because users want to have a "line" chart with numeric
values for X and Y.

....Kelly

 

[Jon Peltier]

I've made this suggestion, along with a more powerful bunch of OM around the
Axis object, but it would entail too large a revision to the charting
engine. Unfortunately 2007 has gone in the other direction. I have a
tutorial on my web site showing how to use line and XY series in conjunction
to get a nice stock chart with ticks for open and close instead of the
candlestick:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/ChartsHowTo/StockChartsAndLineChartTricks.html

This technique works nicely in Excel versions 2003, 2002, 2000, 97, and
probably earlier. However, it falls down in 2007, because an XY series
cannot coexist with a line series on the same axis. You would have to use
the secondary axes for the XY chart, which makes it unavailable for other
effects you could add to such a chart.

- Jon

 

[Del Cotter]

If I were redoing Excel's charting tool, I'd drop the XY (Scatter) Chart -
Line Chart terminology. To me, all 2 D charts are XY charts; scatter and
line charts are just special forms of XY charts. How many questions show up
on the Chart forum because users want to have a "line" chart with numeric
values for X and Y.

Yes, there is an important difference between the Scatter chart and the
Line chart, but it's a difference whose value should not be held in the
"Chart type" field, but in the "Axis type" field. The Format Axis
dialogue box should offer the types "Nominal", "Ordinal", and "Interval"
as named by S. S. Stevens in the 1940s.

"Nominal" is like Excel's "Category"

"Ordinal" is like Excel's "Time-scale" (and therein lies an interesting
bug/feature/property that's the key to a favourite trick of mine for
quick and dirty step charts)

"Interval" is the scale type Excel calls "Category" when the chart type
is Scatter. But the chart type is an inappropriate way of controlling
the difference, a bad early design choice by Microsoft that's now frozen
in.

 

[Del Cotter]

as named by S. S. Stevens in the 1940s.

"Nominal" is like Excel's "Category"

"Ordinal" is like Excel's "Time-scale"

"Interval" is the scale type Excel calls "Category" when the chart type
is Scatter.

Oh, and I forgot to note that in Excel today, the Y axis is always an
interval scale; nominal and ordinal are not offered at all. Which leads
to all those kludges involving horizontal bar chart combinations or
custom-labelled dummy series, to provide labels up the left side. In my
dream Turbo Excel Charts, the X axis would offer N, O, and I types, *and
so would the Y*.

P.S. But like I said, in my dream software there would be no axes
really, in the sense of there being something different from data
series.

P.P.S. Any minute now, some smart alec is going to recommend R

 

[Jon Peltier]

(and therein lies an interesting bug/feature/property that's the key to a

favourite trick of mine for quick and dirty step charts)

Ooh, tell us more!

- Jon

 

[Del Cotter]

Ooh, tell us more!

(This works for me using Excel 97 under Windows XP)

Consider the following range

Series1
1 4
2 2
3 8
4 4
5 7
6 9
7 5
8 6

Where the label "Series1" occupies the cell B2, the X range is A2..A9
and the Y range is B2..B9. If you quickly use the Chart Wizard to create
a scatter chart with lines and markers, the Source Data will look like
this:

X Values: =Sheet1!$A$2:$A$9
Y Values: =Sheet1!$B$2:$B$9

So far, nothing surprising. Now if you go in and manually edit the range
(first remembering that F2 key!) so it looks like this:

X Values: =Sheet1!$A$2:$A$9,Sheet1!$A$2:$A$9
Y Values: =Sheet1!$B$2:$B$9,Sheet1!$B$2:$B$9

(i.e. the same ranges copied twice and separated by a comma)

nothing changes on the scatter graph, except that there is now a line
zipping back to the beginning: the data is just being drawn twice.

Now go in and manually edit the range again so it looks like this:

X Values: =(Sheet1!$A$3:$A$9,Sheet1!$A$2:$A$9)
Y Values: =(Sheet1!$B$2:$B$8,Sheet1!$B$2:$B$9)

(i.e. the X range first part has lost its first row cell, and the Y
range first part has lost its last row cell)

the scatter chart now looks like it has double vision: The line is drawn
across the chart, zips back, and draws itself again displaced one place
to the left.

Now change the chart type to Line, and change the X axis to Time-scale,
and see what you get.

!!

How does it work? Whereas the line in a scatter chart is drawn strictly
in the order the data points appear in the range, the line in a
Time-scale Line chart is drawn from left to right in the order the
points appear on the time-scale!

I expect somebody who knows VBA could turn this into a macro.

 

[Jon Peltier]

I wondered if that was your trick. A fellow named Michel Gerday sent me a
file in which he used names to get this effect in line charts:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/ChartsHowTo/StepChart.html

Pretty neat, unfortunately in breaks down if the data is in an Excel 2003
list, because the list will incorrectly modify the definition of the names
if the size of the list changes.

- Jon

 

[Del Cotter]

Pretty neat, unfortunately in breaks down if the data is in an Excel 2003
list, because the list will incorrectly modify the definition of the names
if the size of the list changes.

If you can't do it with names in XL2003, can you do it with OFFSET?

 

[Jon Peltier]

You can do it with names if you don't use lists. I presume one could define
names in a different clever way to overcome the problem.

- Jon