Line Graphs, X-axis

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#21

I'm trying to draw a line graph where the X-axis is
represented by date and time. From the left to right, my
points go from 20-seconds apart to 5-minutes apart.
However, my Excel graph shows all the points equidistant
from each other. How can have these points represented by
my actual times?

Thank you.
 
That is the definition of the misleadingly named "Line" chart. It has
nothing to do with whether you want a line or not. Instead it specifies
that the x's are categories that have no numerical scaling. Any
(optional) x-values are interpreted as labels rather than numbers.

You probably want an XY (Scatter) chart.

Jerry
 
Thanks Jerry. This is actually how I thought I rectified
this problem last time I had it - by using a scatter
plot. But, it didn't change anything this time. Any
other suggestions?

Thank you.
 
Additionally, when I change to XY scatter, my dates and
times all change to January 2000 at midnight. When I
confirm the values of the x-axis in my plot, the correct
cells are highlighted.

In summary: In "Line" graph, the x-axis values are fine,
but not the distance of each value.
In "Scatter", the x-axis values change to what must be
some default setting, and the distance of the points are
still equal.

Thanks for any help.
 
Your dates and times are not recognized as such by Excel. They are still
interpreted as text, and Excel assigns the numerical value of 0 to a string.

This often happens with imported data. If the values look like dates to
you, but they are left aligned in the cells (by default, Excel left
aligns text and right aligns numbers), you can convert them. Copy a
blank cell, select the textual dates, and choose Paste Special from the
Edit menu. Select the Values and Operation-Add options, and the values
should be transformed into dates. If they look like this:

38294.4791666667

it's because Excel stores dates as whole numbers and times as fractions
of the day. Simply apply a date-time number format.

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