Brian Barker wrote > At 11:05 02/12/2014 -0700, Jerry Vonly Bonly wrote: >>I have a table containing data on my credit card. Left-most column >>is the monthly statement dates, (oldest to newest, top to bottom) >>which are not always the same. The next column to the right is the >>monthly balance. When I create a Column Type chart from these two >>columns of data, I have the balances as the Y data, and the dates as >>the X column labels. For the X column labels, Calc always sets the >>dates to the first day of the month, not the real (table) date. >> >>I have checked the "Format Axis..." settings, and on the Numbers >>tab, "Source Format" is checked. I think this means that it is >>supposed to set the x-axis labels to the format of the cells in the >>table. But, this is not happening. All of the x-axis labels are set >>to the first day of the month, i.e. 01/01/14, instead of 01/24/14 >>(the date in the table). >> >>I have tried all of the other chart types, none of them source the >>dates correctly. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? > > I think this is probably by design. When you plot a chart, you don't > normally put individual data values on the axes, but merely label the > axis with round, equally spaced values. Since your data is roughly > monthly, having x-values labelled once per month sounds sensible. > Note that the y-axis is not labelled with your actual balance amounts > but likewise with suitably round, equally spaced values.
I never thought about it this way, makes sense though. > A column chart appears to set out the columns somewhat regularly, not > exactly according to the x-value for each column. Perhaps that is > because such charts are normally used for non-parametric statistics, > where this makes sense. And you shouldn't really want your equally > spaced columns to be labelled with unequally spaced vales. Correct, but I thought with "Source Format" selected it would use the source format as is. > So what can you do? One possibility is to use a chart of type "X-Y > (Scatter)", where the x-axis labels will still be equally spaced, but > the data points will be displaced into their appropriate place within > each month. But I suspect a better solution, if you really want a > column chart, is to label your columns with just the relevant month - > discarding the day information. You can do this either by changing > the format of your column of statement dates and keeping your "Source > format" option, or - probably more sensibly - to keep the original > dates showing in your table but to untick "Source format" in the > x-Axis dialogue and set a suitable date format there. How about > something like "MM/YY" (12/14) or "MMM YY" (Dec 14)? I tried the "X-Y Scatter" chart type; it still didn't give me what I wanted, and I don't like the "graph" line. > Alternatively, you can use Insert Data Labels to create labels on the > columns themselves. Use Format Data Labels... to adjust them; you can > choose "Show category" to place the date values instead of the > balance amounts on the columns. Format the dates as you wish (they > inherit the Number format from the x-Axis dialogue), possibly > rotating them to fit the columns. Once you have the data labels as > you want them - perhaps "D MMM YYYY" (2 Dec 2014) - you can choose to > delete the x-axis entirely, so you just have columns labelled with > the actual dates. Lots of good ideas Brian, thank you for your input. > I trust this helps. > > Brian Barker > > > -- > To unsubscribe e-mail to: > [email protected] > Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted -- View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Calc-chart-x-axis-labels-tp4131286p4131340.html Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
