Two questions on formatting a chart that I have created in the spreadsheet.
1. The chart is of Column B "data" and Column A "date" ie. a time series. The Y axis of the chart is fine, but the X axis where I would like the dates to appear periodically just has a rising sequence of numbers (eg. the number of days). The chart represents 5 years of data so I would like data labels on the X axis to appear roughly every quarter. How do I do this ??
2. The chart is sitting in the spreadsheet where the data appears. Is it possible to put a heavy border around it for aesthetic purposes (I already have it shaded a colour to make it stand out somewhat?
Howdy. Can you post a sample of the data? It depends on how you have the dates arranged as to how to setup a lookup value for determining quarters. Are you wanting the data accumulated up to the end of each quarter? Or averaged?
Regarding the border, yes you can. CTRL + Click the chart and choose Edit. Then CTRL + Click again and choose Object Properties and the first tab should be borders. From the drop down, choose your option.
As for the dates, it's just a chronological list from 2004 till now. I don't need to have actual quarters labelled, I just want to have some indication of the date running along the X axis as space permits. Even just marking off the years would be sufficient...
I have dates in the spreadsheet cells displaying as eg. 18/06/09 (and I populated the date column (Y axis) by dragging the first few cells downward) if that helps....
Okay, see if this is what you desire. If so, I can walk you through the process. Keep in mind that angled labels are not always best, but given the constraints of Calc, I think this might be a solution. (In Excel it was easy to set up the data in display without reverting to this angled text.)
I will start from the very beginning. You can vary each step as needed.
Select the range of data (columns B and C down as far as the data goes, in the example through row 78 ), then click the chart button on the toolbar. The generic chart appears as column chart. In the dialog window on the left there will be four steps:
1. Chart type: you can change the chart type. I selected Line (center window), and Line Only on the right side.
2. Data Range: Skip for now, it will be taken care of in step 3. The button next to "Data series in columns" should be checked and box before "First row as label" should be checked.
3. Data Series: When it is first created it appears that you have two flat lines (two data series). Here you will make it only one data series (Column C). There will be two ranges listed in the center window, Date and Data. Select Date and then click the remove button at the bottom (You don't want the dates plotted). Then Data will be selected and on the right side you will see Name referenced as $C$1 and Data as $C$2:$C$78.
Below that there is the box for Category. For this example, paste this $Sheet1.$B$1:$B$78. For your own data, you would put in the entire range in column B. Be sure that it matches the total length of column C (including the column title in C1).
4. Chart Elements: Add your Title, Subtitle (if needed), X-axis title (i.e. Dates), and Y-axis title (i.e., My Data). On the right of the window check the Display Legend if you want that to show - normally if you have the Y-axis named, then you should not show the legend. Normally a person would want that on the left side. I'm not sure why the default is on the right side.
Click Finish. Resize the chart by clicking on it and pull the lower right handle and drag down and to right.
With the chart selected, CTRL-Click and choose Edit. That changes the handles on the edges from the light blue to black. Then click the X-axis, and then CTRL-Click it and choose Object Properties. Go to the tab "Label" be sure that "Show labels" is checked in the upper left. In the next section called "Order" click the button next to Automatic. Then at the bottom choose the angle for the label. Adjust the angle to suit your purposes.
Hope this helps. Post back for questions or refinements.
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