strange dates in chart, please help!

[moonlit]

I'm helping my brother with a presentation for school. The problem i
when I enter the dates in the form they are ok but when I create th
chart it makes all these strange dates. I'm including two screenshot
to show you what I mean. I'm using openoffice which is the same a
Microsoft Excel & I've also tried creating the chart in Excel and i
does the same thing. What is going on here?

http://www.digital-overload.org/3eb/problem.jpg

http://www.digital-overload.org/3eb/problem2.jp

 

[Jon Peltier]

I'm using openoffice which is the same as Microsoft Excel

It's the same, only different.

Why are you charting dates on the vertical axis and measurements on the
horizontal axis? Why are you combining two measurements in each cell,
separated by a slash, thus turning two perfectly good numeric values
into a single non numeric label? It is customary to make a chart like
this with the dates along the horizontal axis, and plot one or more
numerical measurements on the vertical axis. Otherwise the chart is no
more descriptive than the table.

Offhand, it looks like the Y axis is running from 0 to 40000 (which is
the number Excel uses for 7/6/2009, the days since 12/31/1899). Since
your values only range between 37881 and 38111, you get a nearly
horizontal line.

To improve the chart, put the dates in the first data column, put the
first measurement (before the slash, and leave off the single quote)
into the second column, and put the second measurement (again, bag the
quote) into the third column. Put labels above the measurement columns,
but leave the cell above the date column blank. Select the cell and
press Delete to be sure it's really blank. Select any one cell in the
data range, run the chart wizard, and make a Line chart (or XY Scatter
chart).

This is how it works in Excel. I don't know how to make a chart in Open
Office, but in any case you need to fix your data first.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
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